April 17, 2025 • 37 mins
Do you have boxes of family photos you've been meaning to organize but have never gotten around to it? Or what about the photos saved onto a backup hard drive or thumb stick? Haleh Shoa, founder of Picturli, shares how they preserve our most precious memories in ways that go far beyond simple scanning.
Drawing from her personal experience archiving her own family's photos after they fled the Iranian revolution with just three suitcases of memories, Haleh reveals how proper photo archiving preserves not just images but the crucial context that makes them meaningful.
The conversation takes us behind the scenes of professional photo organization, from creating family timelines to properly organizing decades of memories. Haleh offers practical tips anyone can use to begin tackling their own photo collections: group similar media types, start with albums rather than loose photos, and understand that a typical shoebox holds approximately 1,000 photos while albums contain 300-500 images.
Beyond the technical aspects, we explore the entrepreneurial journey and wellness practices that sustain Haleh through the challenges of business ownership. She shares how gratitude, redefining success beyond financial metrics, and recognizing the value of personal wellness create a foundation for meaningful work. For anyone with boxes of memories waiting to be preserved or entrepreneurs seeking balance, this conversation offers both practical wisdom and inspiration to take action before it's too late.
Haleh's book recommendation: The Quinn Essentials for Women: 9 Transformational Tools to Accomplish Anything by Andrea Quinn
More about Haleh:
Haleh Shoa is the Founder and CEO of Picturli: a photo organization, curation, archiving, and design studio that helps families, individuals, and businesses transform their chaotic mess of photos into one clear and cohesive digital library. Haleh and her team meticulously organize their clients’ photo collections into a searchable, secure, and easily sharable photo archive. Haleh believes that family histories and personal memories are some of the most valuable treasures that exist and that preserving and sharing them is crucial for future generations.
https://www.instagram.com/picturli
https://www.youtube.com/@picturli
https://www.facebook.com/picturli
https://www.linkedin.com/in/halehshoa
House of JerMar: houseofjermar.com.
Instagram: instagram.com/houseofjermar/
YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@Houseofjermar
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What does archiving mean in your universe?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
For me it is just making sure everything that's
analog to be digital.
But three steps forward is tomake sure that what is digital
is renamed and redated.
So what that means is, rightnow, if you go on a trip and you
take a photo or a video, youcan find where you took that
photo or video.
You can find the date, becauseyour camera, your phone, which
(00:27):
is your camera, captures thatinformation.
You can sort of go into themaps of your photo and figure
out.
You know, see all your photosfrom Italy or Las Vegas.
But when we digitize analog itjust becomes ING234.
Right, and it becomes whateverdate it was scanned.
And I know a lot of companiesscan and it's great.
(00:48):
I mean it's better to have itscanned than not at all in case
of a fire or flood or whatever.
But then they don't make senseof it.
And that's where sort of aprofessional photo organizer
such as myself in my studio,that's where we make the
difference in making sense of it.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Welcome to the House of Germar podcast where wellness
starts within.
The House of Germar is alifestyle brand, empowering
women to live all in throughinterior design and personal
wellness.
We are a destination for womenready to reimagine what is
possible in their homes andlives and then create it.
We are honored to have you joinus on our mission to empower 1
(01:30):
million women to live all in.
I am your host, jean Collins,and I invite you to become
inspired by this week's guest.
Welcome to the House of Jomarpodcast where wellness starts
within.
I'm your host, jean Collins,and today we are going to be
talking about pictures.
Get ready everybody, this is agood one.
We have Halei Shoa and she isthe founder of Picturely, which
(01:53):
is a really cool company, andshe specializes in something
that we all think about doingbut don't necessarily do it,
which is archiving your pictures.
And she happens to live in LA,so we have a lot to talk about
and thankfully, she is safe.
Her family is safe.
We're recording this right afterthe fires in LA, so we will
(02:14):
talk a little bit about that andthe importance of what she's
doing to help families preservetheir memories and her journey
and how she got to be doing whatshe's doing, and we'll also
touch on a little wellness,because we always talk about
wellness.
So High welcome to the House ofGermar podcast.
Thank you so much, jean.
Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Oh, I'm excited to have you,and especially given all that's
going on in LA.
So, before we get started, whatis LA like, like?
(02:36):
What are things like for youand your family and for your
friends that are out there rightnow?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Luckily my family and I are safe and the studio safe.
I'm very grateful for that.
It's really sad.
I have a lot of clients who'velost everything.
I have a lot of friends them toask them do I call them, Like,
(03:05):
what do I even say?
Because it's such a huge lossto the whole city, to the whole
county, it's been hard to evenprocess.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I'm sure.
Yeah, because it affects awhole community and it's hard
for us to even understand and I,you know, I live in and I
remember seeing someone postedon Instagram that the size of
the destruction of the Palisadesfire was larger than Manhattan,
and that was the first time itactually put that magnitude into
perspective for me, someone outhere who's not as familiar with
(03:37):
that part of the country I'vebeen there, but not as familiar
and just thinking about the factlike entire communities are
gone and how tragic that reallyis to be living through that.
So that's a lot.
There's a lot of heaviness tothat.
So I thank you for taking thetime to come and talk about your
business and what you're doingin spite of that heaviness,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And you know it's more important than ever to talk
about this.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Thank you, thank you for that, so let's talk a little
bit about you.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And what is your career journey to becoming an
entrepreneur, and all the sortof the praying and the
visualizations and the digging.
The digging deeper led me tothe fact that I just love
working with memories andcreating with memories.
You know, I love creating photobooks, gallery walls, whatever
(04:38):
it is with memories.
You know, every year I make acalendar for my family with our
photos was one part of it.
Photos was one part of it.
Another part of it was that Iarchived my own family memories
in my twenties while working inadvertising, because my family
left Iran during the Iranianrevolution and they weren't able
to take much with them.
So it was kind of like thehouse is on fire, what do you
take with you, right?
(04:58):
So they basically my mom packedthree suitcases full of photos
in my mid twenties.
I sort of started diggingthrough them and started
archiving them, started emailingthem to my family in Four
Continents, to my family atlarge, and it was just would
bring so many stories out.
It's like, oh, I remember thisand that you know those two
(05:20):
things is really what brought meto where I am today and wanting
to be able to help familiespreserve not only their memories
but the stories to give them anaspect and an avenue to be able
to share their childhood withtheir grandkids or with their
cousins or whoever.
And here we are.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And here you are.
Did you ever think you would bean entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yes and no.
When I first decided to do this, I'm like, oh my God, this is
going to be so easy.
Excuse me for laughing.
You know how hard, can it be?
Wouldn't everyone want to havea beautiful photo book?
What I've always known is thatI want to be a boss, like I've
(06:07):
always been a boss.
I had a big girl job inadvertising, you know, launched
many campaigns that I wasresponsible for, and I didn't do
it myself, so I've always had ateam.
And so what I realized is like,yes, I love doing photo books,
but there's a lot of things thatgo into having a company and I
don't want to do all of it.
And so now I have to have acompany, I have to have
employees, I have to havestandard operating procedures
and know how to do all the youknow, payroll and clean.
(06:28):
I'm the chief cleaning officeras well.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Right, there isn't an HR department to call when you
have questions or need to formfor something.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Or you know IT.
You know I've always, you knowI'm kind of a tech geek, which
is why I another reason why Iwanted to do this, because I
understand technology.
But it's like you know you needIT when your server goes down.
It's like, what do I do now?
It's the hardest thing I'veever done and it's the most
rewarding thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Which is really cool.
I love that.
Now, when you started yourbusiness, was it just you or did
you hire a team right away?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
It was just me.
It was just me and you know Istarted right out the gate.
I got a client who may havebeen the client, but the biggest
stash of photos I've ever seen,still, you know, because I was
in this coaching group.
It was a women's empowermentgroup and there was a woman in
the group and she's like.
You know, I have, I think Ihave a client for you and so we
(07:23):
show show up.
It was in Laurel Canyon.
Her dining room was bigger thanmy house and it was three feet
deep of photos.
And then in the perimeter ofher dining room, were also three
feet of photos, oh my goodness.
And yeah.
So at the gate I was like, okay, wait I.
I got into this to wanting todo photo books and what do I do
(07:44):
now?
And so it sort of pushed meinto archiving and learning how
to archive.
How do you properly archive?
And you know, I startedstudying the Library of Congress
, the.
You know the literature thatthey put out in terms of
archiving, and so, yeah, it wasgood.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
So what is archiving mean in your universe?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
For me it is just making sure everything that's
analog to be digital.
But three steps forward is tomake sure that what is digital
is renamed and redated.
So what that means is, rightnow, if you go on a trip and you
take a photo or a video, youcan find where you took that
photo or video.
(08:28):
You can find the date, becauseyour camera, your phone, which
is your camera, captures thatinformation.
You can sort of go into themaps of your photo and figure
out.
You know, see all your photosfrom Italy or Las Vegas.
But when we digitize analog itjust becomes ING234.
And it becomes whatever date itwas scanned.
(08:51):
And I know a lot of companiesscan and it's great.
I mean it's better to have itscanned than not at all in case
of a fire or flood or whatever.
But then they don't make senseof it.
And that's where a sort of aprofessional organizer, photo
organizer such as myself in mystudio that's where we make the
difference in making sense of it.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I can't even imagine making sense of my boxes of
photos, so let's talk about thisfrom a consumer perspective.
So if I were to reach out toyou, what's the process?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
When were you born, when was your partner born, the
kids, your parents, anyone thatwe could find in old photos.
So we do a family chart and wepaste it all over the studio
(09:46):
when we're working on acollection.
And the reason why we do thatis so that we can organize
things chronologically.
And when we organize itchronologically, then we scan it
and then we can rename andredate it based on the
chronology of what we receive it, and then we can rename and
redate it based on thechronology of what we receive
Right and so and our clientshave their clients who have
never talked to before.
(10:07):
You know, you could have as muchinformation as you'd like.
I can give our clients like aweekly update, or, you know, I
can just put it in a Googlesheet and share it with them and
they can look at it.
So, as little involvement, it'sjust the beginning where we
need to understand OK, show mewhat your mom looked like when
she was five and 15 and 25, andthen we can figure out the rest
Right.
So we just want, we just needto see what people look like at
(10:29):
different ages so that we canidentify those photos and match
it to the timeline.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So do you literally take boxes of photos and like
lay them all out?
What's your studio look like,literally?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Literally Well, we have a lot of flat space.
It's like a puzzle.
Yeah, okay, exactly that.
Yeah, so we have a lot of flatstand up desks because sometimes
you just get tired of sittingdown and sometimes you need to
kind of move fast in sortingRight.
So one side of the studio iswhere all the digitization and
the analog organization is, andthe other side of the studio is
(11:04):
where we do all the digitalorganization and that's when we
download your iCloud and yourpartner's iCloud and come up
with a solution on how we cancombine that with the things
that we scan in case you want toprovide, you know, certain
(11:24):
aspects of it to family at largeand keep certain aspects of it
private.
So there's a lot that goes intoreally understanding how you
want to enjoy your memories andhow you want to share it.
Do you just want to share itwith you and your partner and
maybe your kids, or do you wantto go and give certain parts of
the library to your parents, say, or to your aunts and uncles,
because a lot of times oneperson in the family ends up
(11:49):
with all the family photos.
It could be the eldest child,or it could be the child that
has the biggest house, or itcould be the child that has the
biggest house, or it could bethe child that has more money or
more kids.
You know, whatever it is likeusually like one person ends up
with everything and what thework that we do.
We allow families to be able toshare that with families at
large.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So cool, so you're taking not only people's printed
photos from years ago, you'realso taking their.
You can take their digitallibrary to incorporate all of
that, to make it present, tolike include the family memories
up into present day to getadopted and people were still
(12:39):
printing it, because it was justwhat we did, and they didn't
know what to do with the digitalfiles, yeah, so a lot of times
it would end up in cds.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
So we get a lot of cds with a lot of that because
they didn't know what to do withit.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'm laughing, I have boxes of cds and photos.
I am totally your ideal client.
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Uh-huh drives like memory drives drives and you're
like, oh my god, I haven't seenthat photo of my kid, who's now
like 25, 28, whatever you knowbecause their baby photos are
stuck in these little thumbdrives or digital video.
You know tapes.
Yes, we did a lot of tapes whenthey were younger, so we take
(13:14):
all of that and we include allof that in the library.
So there is nothing that wecan't do in this agency, and
it's wonderful to be able to bea 360, like to be able to
provide like.
If you consider something amemory, we can help you archive
it.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Wow, including film.
Do you do actual?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Absolutely.
You know, whatever those like,film stips.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
No, I'm thinking like when we used to go and have
your film developed at you knowthe Kodak place and you'd get
the envelope and you'd get thepictures, but you'd also get,
like that strip, the negatives,people who can't watch this.
Yes, thank you, the negatives.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
In fact we really encourage our clients to scan
the negatives because youactually get more photo.
The ratio of negatives isdifferent than the four by sixes
that we used to get.
The four by sixes get cut off.
So when we scan the negativesyou can actually see more photo.
Now it may not matter becausemost people, if they're okay to
(14:16):
good photographers, they weresort of framing the picture
correctly.
But these photos, especially ifthey're in sticky album, they
really degrade considerably.
So we really do encourage toscan the negatives.
It is more expensive but youknow you get a better quality
scan out of it.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right.
And then what is the outputlike?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So you know it's important to note that when we
actually go through our clients'collections that we curate
heavily, like you know, you mayhave gone with your girlfriends
back in college and even highschool.
You guys may have gone on atrip and you just took so many
photos of the sky, the this, thethat that you may not even, you
(15:01):
may not even care about now.
Right, it's just the people,the people photos that really
matter.
So we take out the things thatmay not matter to you and to
things that you may want to passon to future generations, and
so we curate heavily andanything that we scan goes into
beautiful boxes, archival boxesthat we return to the clients
(15:24):
and they're able to sort of.
If they're looking at theirlibrary, the digital library,
they're able to go into the boxand find that photo so they can
actually thumb through thephotos.
Because I do think analogphotos and memories do have a
lot of energy.
They hold a lot of energy.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Oh, wow.
So someone can see it digitallyand then the way it is
described or whatever.
They can then go find thatactual image as well.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, they're matched .
It's like a library system.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Oh, that's so cool.
That is even better.
They're just sending back thebox in this random order, being
able to go back and sometimesget those pictures?
There's no random order yeah, oh, wow, well, and the other thing
I'm thinking of, which thismight sound a little bit morbid
but is actually very applicable.
You know, when your parents passaway, or you know grandparents
(16:11):
or family members that are older, if you go to have a memorial
service for them, there's thismad dash and scramble to come up
with photographs of themthroughout their lifetime, and I
know for myself from personalexperience like there's a lot of
time and energy spent on thatat a time that you that's not
where your energy should have tobe going, and so it would be so
(16:34):
helpful and I remember afterthe fact being like oh, there's
that photo.
It's such a bummer, we didn'tfind that in time for the poster
in this, and you know so to beable to have that, especially as
our parents age, so that theycan give the input on those
photos, as well as to what thosephotos are, especially, you
know, the ones that they haveinherited from their parents and
(16:55):
of their youth.
I could look at pictures and Iwouldn't necessarily know if
it's my father or my uncle, butyet my father, since he's still
alive, would be able to tell methat, and now is an important
time to do that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, it's so important.
Even if you don't want to getyour whole collection digitized
and organized right away, Ithink it's really important to
go through it yourself.
I know it's really daunting,but I'm going to just give you
and your listeners some justquick tips on even how to start.
So one of the things that weencourage everyone to do is to
(17:30):
take everything out and put allthe like for likes together.
What I'm talking about is putall the CDs and DVDs together.
Put all the tapes together thatare the same, even if you don't
know what tape you have aboutis put all the CDs and DVDs
together.
Put all the tapes together thatare the same, even if you don't
know what tape you have.
Just look at the size and gookay, I think that's the same as
that because it's the same size.
So that way you would know atleast how many VHS tapes you
have, how many high eights, howmany loose boxes of loose photos
(17:52):
do you have, how many albums doyou have?
And then you could go fromthere.
An album holds approximatelythree to 500 photos, usually
closer to the 300 range.
A box a shoebox of photos holdsabout a thousand.
So if you have like fiveshoebox worth of photos.
You know you have about 5,000photos.
If you have 30 albums, you knowyou have about 900 to 1 photos,
(18:17):
right?
So then that way you can get anidea of how many photos that
you have.
And if you do want to go to thenext step, you know, always
start with the albums, becausethat's where you, or your mom or
your grandmother or whoever,spend some time to organize that
and put that together.
So always start with the albums,because then that gives you
some semblance of anorganization.
(18:39):
This is exactly what we do inthis agency, by the way.
We always start with the albumsand we always leave the loose
photos to the very end, becausethe loose photos are either the
photos that were the mostimportant, because someone
passed away and you werescrambling and you took out the
best photos of them, or they'rethe sort of the C photos, the
(19:03):
photos that you didn'tnecessarily want to throw away
but you didn't want to put it inthe albums.
So it's kind of like a goodrule of thumb to start there and
then take your tapes and DVDsand CDs to someone local or, you
know, call us and we can helpyou.
But take it and get thosedigitized and transferred and
make sure that they can renameand redate, because there's
information on even on VHS tapes.
Somebody always wrote somethinglike so-and-so's graduation
(19:26):
2002.
Right, there's information onthere that you must retain and
it's really important not tolose that information.
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Wow, lose that information, right?
Wow.
So of the digital output, canpeople then take those files and
let's say, I'm just going touse like Shutterfly, for example
, right, you know, I havedifferent books that people have
created over my daughter'slifetime of her at different
periods of time, and are thephotos in a format that someone
could take those and be like ohwow, let's take that Paris trip
(19:56):
that we never did anything withand let's create a bound book
from it.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Absolutely Okay.
All your digital and all yourdigitized analog will all be in
a format where you could domultiple types of projects with
them gallery walls and photobooks and we do that all the
time with our clients.
How do your clients find you?
Well, we're on all the socials,our clients.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
How do your clients find you?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Well, we're on all the socials except TikTok.
I never did TikTok, but I'm onInstagram.
We do a lot of tips onInstagram and Facebook and, of
course, our website.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So do you find most people come to you because they
know someone who's donesomething or they've just done a
Google search and then theyfind you that way.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Now that I've been established for some time, it's
both.
It's through word of mouth.
I work with a lot of designersand I work with a lot of home
organizers.
Because you know designers, canyou know obviously anyone,
anyone that can go intosomeone's home and see and be
able to help a family, likewe're all resources for our
(20:59):
client, like I.
You know I always tell myclients.
If you need anything, you know,even if it's like a really good
plumber, just let me know and Ican, I can figure that out for
you.
I mean, you know like we are allsuch deep resources for our
clients that you know homeorganizers and designers can go
into the home and go okay.
Clients yes, that you know.
Home organizers and designerscan go into the home and go okay
, you know, I know someone whocould do this for you.
(21:19):
I get referrals through sort ofour what we consider power
partners.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And then Google is a big one.
I would think so.
Yeah, is there a part of youthat's a little bit amazed at
how big your business has?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
gotten.
Yes, I mean I, I practicegratitude every day and my
business is always in my heart,and even when it's, you know, in
the slow periods and I've beenin business long enough to know
that even the slow periods is agift from the universe to say,
okay, now you get to work onyour business.
Yes, yes, exactly this is a giftand use it as that.
(21:55):
Everything is a gift.
Every day we wake up is a gift.
You know, sometimes I have topinch myself.
I have 18 hard square footoffice.
It's absolutely beautiful.
I designed every aspect of it,from picking the flooring to the
colors on the walls, and I onlyhad five days to do it.
And it's beautiful.
(22:16):
And we receive clients here and.
But of course, we also go toour clients, no matter where
they are, to be able to helpthem and collect their, their
information and their assets.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, and how do most people ship everything?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
to you, because I'm thinking of the woman with all
of those photos and, you know,in her dining room, like that's
a lot of stuff.
Well, luckily Laurel Canyon isnot that far from where we are
in Los Angeles, so we were ableto go to her, but this is still
when I had my regular job inadvertising.
So I got the client.
And then I was working at an adagency that was doing a global
work for Jaguar and Land Rover,and then they turned around and
(22:57):
said, hey, will you, can you beour director of operations
globally?
And I was like, well, I can'treally turn that down, cause
that's a little gig.
And so I put my husband on thethe photo organizing stuff,
because he's he used to dealwith assets and he's a
photographer.
So it was like go time in 2016,2017, 2018.
(23:17):
It was like I, you know, wewere both working 24 hours a day
.
It was like go time in 2016,2017, 2018.
It was like, you know, we wereboth working 24 hours a day.
It was fun and it wasexhausting and we learned.
We both learned a lot, but youknow, it's of course, it's
easier for us to work with ourclients, but you know, we got.
I've gotten to a point where Idon't really need that much of
my client's time.
I just really need tounderstand their goals, which is
(23:40):
, you know, we have a prettygood process in obtaining that
and and just learning who isreally important in their photo
collection, right, doing theupfront work of who's who.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's the who's who org chart.
Yes, oh, that's so fascinating.
All right, so you mentioned theuniverse One of my favorite
things to start to talk aboutand gratitude I can woo-woo with
you for a long time yeah.
I'm all in.
I'm all about gratitude.
I start every day with agratitude practice, so I would
love to learn some of the thingsthat you do, because I always
(24:12):
think for my audience.
They see us as thesebusinesswomen who run these
businesses, and yet it'simportant for them to understand
the stuff that we do on theside to take care of ourselves
and our own inner wellness,because it is a necessity I feel
, and I feel very strongly aboutthis.
As an entrepreneur, andespecially as a woman, you have
to take care of you, otherwiseno one else is going to.
(24:32):
So let's talk a little woo,let's talk a little wellness.
Let's get woo yeah, let's getwoo yeah, let's get woo and well
.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I love it.
For me, woo and wellness arehand in hand.
Obviously, when things are welland you have all these clients
flowing through and everythingis working out perfectly, it's
great.
But there's an ebb and flow toeverything.
There's an ebb and flow to ourbodies.
There's an ebb and flow toeverything, to what's happening
(24:59):
in the world right now.
And you know, the good is greatand the things that I'm not
going to say negative, but thethings that go against what we
expect and what we don't want iswhat's happening for us and not
to us.
Yes, so when the going getsreally tough, I just kind of go
(25:23):
to that 30,000 foot level andsort of try and see why this is
happening for me right now.
What are the lessons that I'msupposed to take away from this?
And it really changes theenergy of holy cow, you know,
and that anxiety to reallygetting grounded and, you know,
being able to stay clear andhave your clarity as you're
(25:48):
going through these tough times.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, and it's a lot.
It's hard to do sometimes,especially as an entrepreneur,
because you're carrying theweight of your success.
Plus, once you have employees,you're carrying the weight of
their success also, and that's alot.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's a lot to sign up for.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
But you know, I do believe that we are all
spiritual beings having a humanexperience.
So our spirits are here tolearn from this human experience
, from this vessel.
So what am I here to learn andwhat is my purpose?
And I've always known that mypurpose is service.
You know, I don't know.
I mean, and service comes in somany different ways.
(26:31):
Right, I could be a doctor, orI could be a photo organizer,
right, of course it's stillservice Service.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Customer service in your business is critical.
You are still in a serviceindustry that's right, trying to
make people's lives better.
Yes, now do you journal?
Do you meditate?
I?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
pray.
I don't meditate.
I do nature walks, which iskind of a meditation.
Absolutely yeah, although ournature right now is she's going
through a lot right now.
Yeah, I do journal, but notevery day, you know, and it
makes me so sad because when Igo through my journal I'm like
why didn't I remember about that?
(27:16):
So then but just like life gavethem away, I have ADHD and it's
hard for me to have consistencyand I think it's important.
I was always like ashamed ofsaying that I have ADHD.
Because I'm like I have a biggirl job.
I can't say I'm ADHD or I'm anentrepreneur.
But you know what, whoever'slistening to this, you're not
alone.
There's a lot of successfulpeople with big jobs or
(27:40):
businesses that are growing andthriving who have ADHD.
It's not easy, but you have amagical brain like I do, and
sometimes the consistency partis difficult for us, and
especially the consistency partin wellness.
So, yeah, and I think it'simportant for us to at least
remind ourselves that our personis important.
(28:02):
We are important, especially aswomen.
We have to continue to remindourselves that we're important
and to make sure that we aremaking ourselves.
Like you know, I always putmyself last.
It's like, oh, the business,the husband, the family, the,
the, and yeah, no, it's, I'mimportant, I need to take care
(28:23):
of myself.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
So yes, you have to make yourself a priority.
Exactly yeah, without a doubt.
My business coach always saysyou know I am valuable because I
am, and it's like you know.
She's always reminding me likeyou are valuable because you are
, not because because I am.
She's like it's not justbecause you hit a revenue goal
or you accomplish this.
And it's hard as anentrepreneur because we evaluate
(28:46):
ourselves based on suchdifferent success metrics and
she's always trying to get me tolike pull inward in terms of
success as an entrepreneur.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You know, I try and redefine success for me, because
success in most first worldcountries is money.
Right, what's success?
Oh, how much money am I making?
But for me, the success is thefact that I don't have to work
10 hours a day and I don't.
You know, success is for me tohave a flexible schedule, for me
to be able to see my parents mydad's 97.
(29:16):
My mom's 84.
You know, yeah, for me to bethere for my husband and my
family so we can define our.
I mean, we have, let's put itthis way, I'm so grateful that I
can define success for myself.
That's another thing that I'mreally grateful for, that I can
define that as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yes, and a lot of times they say I was just
reading a book called theIllusion of Money and it's that
you know really what we want.
It's not that we want money, wewant freedom.
And you know people don't likescream and yell like, yeah, I
want to work 18 hours a day tomake all this money.
We don't actually want that.
We want freedom of choice, youknow, and we want freedom to be
able to be ourselves and do thethings that we want to do, and
(30:00):
money sometimes affords us thatfreedom.
But a lot of that comes fromwithin.
First, in order to get thatfreedom is understanding who you
are and finding your passionsand following it.
Yeah, so what's on your bucketlist for the future, for you
personally and professionally?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I think that, ironically, I think these fires
are going to really make peoplea little bit more conscious
about preserving their memoriesand therefore positively
affecting people calling us andwanting to hire us, sort of from
the ashes we rise.
(30:35):
I mean not that this oh my gosh, I can't even imagine if
anything happens to the studio.
But so I think that's a goodthing.
We're just kind of gearing up.
I've gotten a lot of phonecalls.
I just went to New York to beon Good Day New York to talk
about the importance ofpreserving and how to even make
it so we're agile in casesomething happens in the house.
But personally I would.
(30:57):
You know I always want to takean international trip every year
and I've been doing that for atleast 20 years.
So this year might be Japan, Idon't know yet it's a big one.
Yes, so it depends on you know,on a lot of things like the
when and how and all that stuff.
But it's hard.
(31:17):
It's hard when you haveemployees and they rely on you
for a lot of information for youto be out three weeks.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Right, yes, exactly, that's a tough vacation to take,
but if you're going to go thatfar away, you almost need to.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yes, so that's one of the things.
And then just continue myself-care Like I really started
a good self-care routine that Iam comfortable with.
It's not, it's not superdifficult.
So just continuing that andcontinuing to feel better, to
feel lighter and healthier andmore clear about what we need to
(31:54):
do.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, but then the universe brings what you what
you think about is what youattract.
So I truly believe that, right,and so that's like talk about
manifesting Exactly, like really, what you think about is what
you attract, and I've met somany entrepreneurs that are like
that's exactly why I have whatI have and how I've created the
life that I've had is that Ijust believed in myself and I
(32:16):
had a vision and I had a goaland I just kept taking baby
steps towards getting to it.
And that's manifesting in itsmost basic sense.
It's so true, yeah, which is sogreat.
Well, I've taken up so much ofyour time and truly, once again
you're in LA and I just feel sograteful that you were even
willing to get on with us,because I feel like there's just
a lot going on in your universeover there.
(32:36):
So, before we go, I always liketo ask my guests if there's a
book that they would recommendthat has impacted them either
professionally or personally,because I'm a true believer that
books can change lives.
So is there a book you thinkour audience should read?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yes, there is a book by my coach, who I studied with
in 2015.
And I'm actually one of hercoaches now.
I went through her TAIL programand I'm also a life slash
business coach.
Love it, and her name is AndreaQuinn and she wrote the nine
essential tools for women to beable to accomplish anything.
Ooh, so yeah, it's great.
(33:12):
I, you know, I coach with hernine tools, I practice her nine
tools.
It's not anything that we neverheard of, but it's just the way
she puts it and it's a verymagical program and it's a very
magical book, and so I hope thatyou guys all look her up and
get her book and get her audio.
(33:33):
It's her voice and she's aslice of heaven.
She's amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I love that.
I have never heard of her and Ido try to read all the books
that all of my guests recommend,so I grow a lot by having so
many guests on.
It's wonderful.
So I love coaches.
I think coaching is soimportant, both personally and
in my career.
I think coaching is reallyimportant, yeah, and I think
it's a gift to be able to coachpeople, so I am so excited.
(33:58):
I will definitely read her book.
Thank you so much.
Is there anything that I didnot ask you that you want to
make sure we get out, that youwant to share?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
If people want to sign up for on our website it's
picturely P-I-C-T-U-R-L-I andthat's a weird spelling
P-I-C-T-U-R-L-Icom slash connect.
So if you want to connect withus, you can sign up for a seven
step guide on how to startorganizing your own photo
collection and it's a reallygood tool to just.
(34:28):
Obviously it's not going togive you everything that you
need because it is a longprocess, but you can sign up to
receive that.
Otherwise, reach out to us,follow us on all of our channels
(34:51):
.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
On Instagram and Facebook, we put out a lot of
great content that I think ishelpful.
Also, if you sign up, we do alot of workshops and, of course,
comes out.
I'll tag you on social media aswell, so everyone will be able
to go and find you.
So, haleigh, thank you so much.
This is really.
It makes me think.
This is kind of on my to-dolist is to deal with the many
boxes of photos that I have fromwhen my daughter was younger in
particular, and I know myfather has an attic full of
(35:12):
family photos and every time Igo up there it honestly just
gives me anxiety because I don'tknow what to do about them.
So I am so happy that I met youand hopefully our paths will
cross again.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I would love that.
So thank you so much.
I would love that, Jane.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Thank you for being a guest and have a beautiful day
and good luck to you and all ofyour neighbors in LA.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode of the House of
Jermar podcast, where wellnessstarts within.
We appreciate you being a partof our community and hope you
felt inspired and motivated byour guest.
If you enjoyed this episode,please write us a review and
(35:47):
share it with friends.
Building our reach on YouTubeand Apple Podcasts will help us
get closer to our mission toempower 1 million women to live
all in.
You can also follow us onInstagram at House of Jermar and
sign up to be a part of ourmonthly inspiration newsletter
through our website,houseofjermarcom.
If you or someone you knowwould be a good guest on the
(36:10):
show, please reach out to us atpodcast at houseofjermarcom.
This has been a House of JGermar production with your host
, Jean Collins.
Thank you for joining our house.
What does archiving mean in your universe?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
For me it is just making sure everything that's
analog to be digital.
But three steps forward is tomake sure that what is digital
is renamed and redated.
So what that means is, rightnow, if you go on a trip and you
take a photo or a video, youcan find where you took that
photo or video.
You can find the date, becauseyour camera, your phone, which
(00:27):
is your camera, captures thatinformation.
You can sort of go into themaps of your photo and figure
out.
You know, see all your photosfrom Italy or Las Vegas.
But when we digitize analog itjust becomes ING234.
Right, and it becomes whateverdate it was scanned.
And I know a lot of companiesscan and it's great.
(00:48):
I mean it's better to have itscanned than not at all in case
of a fire or flood or whatever.
But then they don't make senseof it.
And that's where sort of aprofessional photo organizer
such as myself in my studio,that's where we make the
difference in making sense of it.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Welcome to the House of Germar podcast where wellness
starts within.
The House of Germar is alifestyle brand, empowering
women to live all in throughinterior design and personal
wellness.
We are a destination for womenready to reimagine what is
possible in their homes andlives and then create it.
We are honored to have you joinus on our mission to empower 1
(01:30):
million women to live all in.
I am your host, jean Collins,and I invite you to become
inspired by this week's guest.
Welcome to the House of Jomarpodcast where wellness starts
within.
I'm your host, jean Collins,and today we are going to be
talking about pictures.
Get ready everybody, this is agood one.
We have Halei Shoa and she isthe founder of Picturely, which
(01:53):
is a really cool company, andshe specializes in something
that we all think about doingbut don't necessarily do it,
which is archiving your pictures.
And she happens to live in LA,so we have a lot to talk about
and thankfully, she is safe.
Her family is safe.
We're recording this right afterthe fires in LA, so we will
(02:14):
talk a little bit about that andthe importance of what she's
doing to help families preservetheir memories and her journey
and how she got to be doing whatshe's doing, and we'll also
touch on a little wellness,because we always talk about
wellness.
So High welcome to the House ofGermar podcast.
Thank you so much, jean.
Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Oh, I'm excited to have you,and especially given all that's
going on in LA.
So, before we get started, whatis LA like, like?
(02:36):
What are things like for youand your family and for your
friends that are out there rightnow?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Luckily my family and I are safe and the studio safe.
I'm very grateful for that.
It's really sad.
I have a lot of clients who'velost everything.
I have a lot of friends them toask them do I call them, Like,
(03:05):
what do I even say?
Because it's such a huge lossto the whole city, to the whole
county, it's been hard to evenprocess.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I'm sure.
Yeah, because it affects awhole community and it's hard
for us to even understand and I,you know, I live in and I
remember seeing someone postedon Instagram that the size of
the destruction of the Palisadesfire was larger than Manhattan,
and that was the first time itactually put that magnitude into
perspective for me, someone outhere who's not as familiar with
(03:37):
that part of the country I'vebeen there, but not as familiar
and just thinking about the factlike entire communities are
gone and how tragic that reallyis to be living through that.
So that's a lot.
There's a lot of heaviness tothat.
So I thank you for taking thetime to come and talk about your
business and what you're doingin spite of that heaviness,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And you know it's more important than ever to talk
about this.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Thank you, thank you for that, so let's talk a little
bit about you.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And what is your career journey to becoming an
entrepreneur, and all the sortof the praying and the
visualizations and the digging.
The digging deeper led me tothe fact that I just love
working with memories andcreating with memories.
You know, I love creating photobooks, gallery walls, whatever
(04:38):
it is with memories.
You know, every year I make acalendar for my family with our
photos was one part of it.
Photos was one part of it.
Another part of it was that Iarchived my own family memories
in my twenties while working inadvertising, because my family
left Iran during the Iranianrevolution and they weren't able
to take much with them.
So it was kind of like thehouse is on fire, what do you
take with you, right?
(04:58):
So they basically my mom packedthree suitcases full of photos
in my mid twenties.
I sort of started diggingthrough them and started
archiving them, started emailingthem to my family in Four
Continents, to my family atlarge, and it was just would
bring so many stories out.
It's like, oh, I remember thisand that you know those two
(05:20):
things is really what brought meto where I am today and wanting
to be able to help familiespreserve not only their memories
but the stories to give them anaspect and an avenue to be able
to share their childhood withtheir grandkids or with their
cousins or whoever.
And here we are.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And here you are.
Did you ever think you would bean entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yes and no.
When I first decided to do this, I'm like, oh my God, this is
going to be so easy.
Excuse me for laughing.
You know how hard, can it be?
Wouldn't everyone want to havea beautiful photo book?
What I've always known is thatI want to be a boss, like I've
(06:07):
always been a boss.
I had a big girl job inadvertising, you know, launched
many campaigns that I wasresponsible for, and I didn't do
it myself, so I've always had ateam.
And so what I realized is like,yes, I love doing photo books,
but there's a lot of things thatgo into having a company and I
don't want to do all of it.
And so now I have to have acompany, I have to have
employees, I have to havestandard operating procedures
and know how to do all the youknow, payroll and clean.
(06:28):
I'm the chief cleaning officeras well.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Right, there isn't an HR department to call when you
have questions or need to formfor something.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Or you know IT.
You know I've always, you knowI'm kind of a tech geek, which
is why I another reason why Iwanted to do this, because I
understand technology.
But it's like you know you needIT when your server goes down.
It's like, what do I do now?
It's the hardest thing I'veever done and it's the most
rewarding thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Which is really cool.
I love that.
Now, when you started yourbusiness, was it just you or did
you hire a team right away?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
It was just me.
It was just me and you know Istarted right out the gate.
I got a client who may havebeen the client, but the biggest
stash of photos I've ever seen,still, you know, because I was
in this coaching group.
It was a women's empowermentgroup and there was a woman in
the group and she's like.
You know, I have, I think Ihave a client for you and so we
(07:23):
show show up.
It was in Laurel Canyon.
Her dining room was bigger thanmy house and it was three feet
deep of photos.
And then in the perimeter ofher dining room, were also three
feet of photos, oh my goodness.
And yeah.
So at the gate I was like, okay, wait I.
I got into this to wanting todo photo books and what do I do
(07:44):
now?
And so it sort of pushed meinto archiving and learning how
to archive.
How do you properly archive?
And you know, I startedstudying the Library of Congress
, the.
You know the literature thatthey put out in terms of
archiving, and so, yeah, it wasgood.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
So what is archiving mean in your universe?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
For me it is just making sure everything that's
analog to be digital.
But three steps forward is tomake sure that what is digital
is renamed and redated.
So what that means is, rightnow, if you go on a trip and you
take a photo or a video, youcan find where you took that
photo or video.
(08:28):
You can find the date, becauseyour camera, your phone, which
is your camera, captures thatinformation.
You can sort of go into themaps of your photo and figure
out.
You know, see all your photosfrom Italy or Las Vegas.
But when we digitize analog itjust becomes ING234.
And it becomes whatever date itwas scanned.
(08:51):
And I know a lot of companiesscan and it's great.
I mean it's better to have itscanned than not at all in case
of a fire or flood or whatever.
But then they don't make senseof it.
And that's where a sort of aprofessional organizer, photo
organizer such as myself in mystudio that's where we make the
difference in making sense of it.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I can't even imagine making sense of my boxes of
photos, so let's talk about thisfrom a consumer perspective.
So if I were to reach out toyou, what's the process?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
When were you born, when was your partner born, the
kids, your parents, anyone thatwe could find in old photos.
So we do a family chart and wepaste it all over the studio
(09:46):
when we're working on acollection.
And the reason why we do thatis so that we can organize
things chronologically.
And when we organize itchronologically, then we scan it
and then we can rename andredate it based on the
chronology of what we receive it, and then we can rename and
redate it based on thechronology of what we receive
Right and so and our clientshave their clients who have
never talked to before.
(10:07):
You know, you could have as muchinformation as you'd like.
I can give our clients like aweekly update, or, you know, I
can just put it in a Googlesheet and share it with them and
they can look at it.
So, as little involvement, it'sjust the beginning where we
need to understand OK, show mewhat your mom looked like when
she was five and 15 and 25, andthen we can figure out the rest
Right.
So we just want, we just needto see what people look like at
(10:29):
different ages so that we canidentify those photos and match
it to the timeline.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So do you literally take boxes of photos and like
lay them all out?
What's your studio look like,literally?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Literally Well, we have a lot of flat space.
It's like a puzzle.
Yeah, okay, exactly that.
Yeah, so we have a lot of flatstand up desks because sometimes
you just get tired of sittingdown and sometimes you need to
kind of move fast in sortingRight.
So one side of the studio iswhere all the digitization and
the analog organization is, andthe other side of the studio is
(11:04):
where we do all the digitalorganization and that's when we
download your iCloud and yourpartner's iCloud and come up
with a solution on how we cancombine that with the things
that we scan in case you want toprovide, you know, certain
(11:24):
aspects of it to family at largeand keep certain aspects of it
private.
So there's a lot that goes intoreally understanding how you
want to enjoy your memories andhow you want to share it.
Do you just want to share itwith you and your partner and
maybe your kids, or do you wantto go and give certain parts of
the library to your parents, say, or to your aunts and uncles,
because a lot of times oneperson in the family ends up
(11:49):
with all the family photos.
It could be the eldest child,or it could be the child that
has the biggest house, or itcould be the child that has the
biggest house, or it could bethe child that has more money or
more kids.
You know, whatever it is likeusually like one person ends up
with everything and what thework that we do.
We allow families to be able toshare that with families at
large.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So cool, so you're taking not only people's printed
photos from years ago, you'realso taking their.
You can take their digitallibrary to incorporate all of
that, to make it present, tolike include the family memories
up into present day to getadopted and people were still
(12:39):
printing it, because it was justwhat we did, and they didn't
know what to do with the digitalfiles, yeah, so a lot of times
it would end up in cds.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
So we get a lot of cds with a lot of that because
they didn't know what to do withit.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'm laughing, I have boxes of cds and photos.
I am totally your ideal client.
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Uh-huh drives like memory drives drives and you're
like, oh my god, I haven't seenthat photo of my kid, who's now
like 25, 28, whatever you knowbecause their baby photos are
stuck in these little thumbdrives or digital video.
You know tapes.
Yes, we did a lot of tapes whenthey were younger, so we take
(13:14):
all of that and we include allof that in the library.
So there is nothing that wecan't do in this agency, and
it's wonderful to be able to bea 360, like to be able to
provide like.
If you consider something amemory, we can help you archive
it.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Wow, including film.
Do you do actual?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Absolutely.
You know, whatever those like,film stips.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
No, I'm thinking like when we used to go and have
your film developed at you knowthe Kodak place and you'd get
the envelope and you'd get thepictures, but you'd also get,
like that strip, the negatives,people who can't watch this.
Yes, thank you, the negatives.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
In fact we really encourage our clients to scan
the negatives because youactually get more photo.
The ratio of negatives isdifferent than the four by sixes
that we used to get.
The four by sixes get cut off.
So when we scan the negativesyou can actually see more photo.
Now it may not matter becausemost people, if they're okay to
(14:16):
good photographers, they weresort of framing the picture
correctly.
But these photos, especially ifthey're in sticky album, they
really degrade considerably.
So we really do encourage toscan the negatives.
It is more expensive but youknow you get a better quality
scan out of it.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right.
And then what is the outputlike?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So you know it's important to note that when we
actually go through our clients'collections that we curate
heavily, like you know, you mayhave gone with your girlfriends
back in college and even highschool.
You guys may have gone on atrip and you just took so many
photos of the sky, the this, thethat that you may not even, you
(15:01):
may not even care about now.
Right, it's just the people,the people photos that really
matter.
So we take out the things thatmay not matter to you and to
things that you may want to passon to future generations, and
so we curate heavily andanything that we scan goes into
beautiful boxes, archival boxesthat we return to the clients
(15:24):
and they're able to sort of.
If they're looking at theirlibrary, the digital library,
they're able to go into the boxand find that photo so they can
actually thumb through thephotos.
Because I do think analogphotos and memories do have a
lot of energy.
They hold a lot of energy.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Oh, wow.
So someone can see it digitallyand then the way it is
described or whatever.
They can then go find thatactual image as well.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, they're matched .
It's like a library system.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Oh, that's so cool.
That is even better.
They're just sending back thebox in this random order, being
able to go back and sometimesget those pictures?
There's no random order yeah, oh, wow, well, and the other thing
I'm thinking of, which thismight sound a little bit morbid
but is actually very applicable.
You know, when your parents passaway, or you know grandparents
(16:11):
or family members that are older, if you go to have a memorial
service for them, there's thismad dash and scramble to come up
with photographs of themthroughout their lifetime, and I
know for myself from personalexperience like there's a lot of
time and energy spent on thatat a time that you that's not
where your energy should have tobe going, and so it would be so
(16:34):
helpful and I remember afterthe fact being like oh, there's
that photo.
It's such a bummer, we didn'tfind that in time for the poster
in this, and you know so to beable to have that, especially as
our parents age, so that theycan give the input on those
photos, as well as to what thosephotos are, especially, you
know, the ones that they haveinherited from their parents and
(16:55):
of their youth.
I could look at pictures and Iwouldn't necessarily know if
it's my father or my uncle, butyet my father, since he's still
alive, would be able to tell methat, and now is an important
time to do that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, it's so important.
Even if you don't want to getyour whole collection digitized
and organized right away, Ithink it's really important to
go through it yourself.
I know it's really daunting,but I'm going to just give you
and your listeners some justquick tips on even how to start.
So one of the things that weencourage everyone to do is to
(17:30):
take everything out and put allthe like for likes together.
What I'm talking about is putall the CDs and DVDs together.
Put all the tapes together thatare the same, even if you don't
know what tape you have aboutis put all the CDs and DVDs
together.
Put all the tapes together thatare the same, even if you don't
know what tape you have.
Just look at the size and gookay, I think that's the same as
that because it's the same size.
So that way you would know atleast how many VHS tapes you
have, how many high eights, howmany loose boxes of loose photos
(17:52):
do you have, how many albums doyou have?
And then you could go fromthere.
An album holds approximatelythree to 500 photos, usually
closer to the 300 range.
A box a shoebox of photos holdsabout a thousand.
So if you have like fiveshoebox worth of photos.
You know you have about 5,000photos.
If you have 30 albums, you knowyou have about 900 to 1 photos,
(18:17):
right?
So then that way you can get anidea of how many photos that
you have.
And if you do want to go to thenext step, you know, always
start with the albums, becausethat's where you, or your mom or
your grandmother or whoever,spend some time to organize that
and put that together.
So always start with the albums,because then that gives you
some semblance of anorganization.
(18:39):
This is exactly what we do inthis agency, by the way.
We always start with the albumsand we always leave the loose
photos to the very end, becausethe loose photos are either the
photos that were the mostimportant, because someone
passed away and you werescrambling and you took out the
best photos of them, or they'rethe sort of the C photos, the
(19:03):
photos that you didn'tnecessarily want to throw away
but you didn't want to put it inthe albums.
So it's kind of like a goodrule of thumb to start there and
then take your tapes and DVDsand CDs to someone local or, you
know, call us and we can helpyou.
But take it and get thosedigitized and transferred and
make sure that they can renameand redate, because there's
information on even on VHS tapes.
Somebody always wrote somethinglike so-and-so's graduation
(19:26):
2002.
Right, there's information onthere that you must retain and
it's really important not tolose that information.
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Wow, lose that information, right?
Wow.
So of the digital output, canpeople then take those files and
let's say, I'm just going touse like Shutterfly, for example
, right, you know, I havedifferent books that people have
created over my daughter'slifetime of her at different
periods of time, and are thephotos in a format that someone
could take those and be like ohwow, let's take that Paris trip
(19:56):
that we never did anything withand let's create a bound book
from it.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Absolutely Okay.
All your digital and all yourdigitized analog will all be in
a format where you could domultiple types of projects with
them gallery walls and photobooks and we do that all the
time with our clients.
How do your clients find you?
Well, we're on all the socials,our clients.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
How do your clients find you?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Well, we're on all the socials except TikTok.
I never did TikTok, but I'm onInstagram.
We do a lot of tips onInstagram and Facebook and, of
course, our website.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So do you find most people come to you because they
know someone who's donesomething or they've just done a
Google search and then theyfind you that way.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Now that I've been established for some time, it's
both.
It's through word of mouth.
I work with a lot of designersand I work with a lot of home
organizers.
Because you know designers, canyou know obviously anyone,
anyone that can go intosomeone's home and see and be
able to help a family, likewe're all resources for our
(20:59):
client, like I.
You know I always tell myclients.
If you need anything, you know,even if it's like a really good
plumber, just let me know and Ican, I can figure that out for
you.
I mean, you know like we are allsuch deep resources for our
clients that you know homeorganizers and designers can go
into the home and go okay.
Clients yes, that you know.
Home organizers and designerscan go into the home and go okay
, you know, I know someone whocould do this for you.
(21:19):
I get referrals through sort ofour what we consider power
partners.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And then Google is a big one.
I would think so.
Yeah, is there a part of youthat's a little bit amazed at
how big your business has?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
gotten.
Yes, I mean I, I practicegratitude every day and my
business is always in my heart,and even when it's, you know, in
the slow periods and I've beenin business long enough to know
that even the slow periods is agift from the universe to say,
okay, now you get to work onyour business.
Yes, yes, exactly this is a giftand use it as that.
(21:55):
Everything is a gift.
Every day we wake up is a gift.
You know, sometimes I have topinch myself.
I have 18 hard square footoffice.
It's absolutely beautiful.
I designed every aspect of it,from picking the flooring to the
colors on the walls, and I onlyhad five days to do it.
And it's beautiful.
(22:16):
And we receive clients here and.
But of course, we also go toour clients, no matter where
they are, to be able to helpthem and collect their, their
information and their assets.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, and how do most people ship everything?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
to you, because I'm thinking of the woman with all
of those photos and, you know,in her dining room, like that's
a lot of stuff.
Well, luckily Laurel Canyon isnot that far from where we are
in Los Angeles, so we were ableto go to her, but this is still
when I had my regular job inadvertising.
So I got the client.
And then I was working at an adagency that was doing a global
work for Jaguar and Land Rover,and then they turned around and
(22:57):
said, hey, will you, can you beour director of operations
globally?
And I was like, well, I can'treally turn that down, cause
that's a little gig.
And so I put my husband on thethe photo organizing stuff,
because he's he used to dealwith assets and he's a
photographer.
So it was like go time in 2016,2017, 2018.
(23:17):
It was like I, you know, wewere both working 24 hours a day
.
It was like go time in 2016,2017, 2018.
It was like, you know, we wereboth working 24 hours a day.
It was fun and it wasexhausting and we learned.
We both learned a lot, but youknow, it's of course, it's
easier for us to work with ourclients, but you know, we got.
I've gotten to a point where Idon't really need that much of
my client's time.
I just really need tounderstand their goals, which is
(23:40):
, you know, we have a prettygood process in obtaining that
and and just learning who isreally important in their photo
collection, right, doing theupfront work of who's who.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's the who's who org chart.
Yes, oh, that's so fascinating.
All right, so you mentioned theuniverse One of my favorite
things to start to talk aboutand gratitude I can woo-woo with
you for a long time yeah.
I'm all in.
I'm all about gratitude.
I start every day with agratitude practice, so I would
love to learn some of the thingsthat you do, because I always
(24:12):
think for my audience.
They see us as thesebusinesswomen who run these
businesses, and yet it'simportant for them to understand
the stuff that we do on theside to take care of ourselves
and our own inner wellness,because it is a necessity I feel
, and I feel very strongly aboutthis.
As an entrepreneur, andespecially as a woman, you have
to take care of you, otherwiseno one else is going to.
(24:32):
So let's talk a little woo,let's talk a little wellness.
Let's get woo yeah, let's getwoo yeah, let's get woo and well
.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I love it.
For me, woo and wellness arehand in hand.
Obviously, when things are welland you have all these clients
flowing through and everythingis working out perfectly, it's
great.
But there's an ebb and flow toeverything.
There's an ebb and flow to ourbodies.
There's an ebb and flow toeverything, to what's happening
(24:59):
in the world right now.
And you know, the good is greatand the things that I'm not
going to say negative, but thethings that go against what we
expect and what we don't want iswhat's happening for us and not
to us.
Yes, so when the going getsreally tough, I just kind of go
(25:23):
to that 30,000 foot level andsort of try and see why this is
happening for me right now.
What are the lessons that I'msupposed to take away from this?
And it really changes theenergy of holy cow, you know,
and that anxiety to reallygetting grounded and, you know,
being able to stay clear andhave your clarity as you're
(25:48):
going through these tough times.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, and it's a lot.
It's hard to do sometimes,especially as an entrepreneur,
because you're carrying theweight of your success.
Plus, once you have employees,you're carrying the weight of
their success also, and that's alot.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's a lot to sign up for.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
But you know, I do believe that we are all
spiritual beings having a humanexperience.
So our spirits are here tolearn from this human experience
, from this vessel.
So what am I here to learn andwhat is my purpose?
And I've always known that mypurpose is service.
You know, I don't know.
I mean, and service comes in somany different ways.
(26:31):
Right, I could be a doctor, orI could be a photo organizer,
right, of course it's stillservice Service.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Customer service in your business is critical.
You are still in a serviceindustry that's right, trying to
make people's lives better.
Yes, now do you journal?
Do you meditate?
I?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
pray.
I don't meditate.
I do nature walks, which iskind of a meditation.
Absolutely yeah, although ournature right now is she's going
through a lot right now.
Yeah, I do journal, but notevery day, you know, and it
makes me so sad because when Igo through my journal I'm like
why didn't I remember about that?
(27:16):
So then but just like life gavethem away, I have ADHD and it's
hard for me to have consistencyand I think it's important.
I was always like ashamed ofsaying that I have ADHD.
Because I'm like I have a biggirl job.
I can't say I'm ADHD or I'm anentrepreneur.
But you know what, whoever'slistening to this, you're not
alone.
There's a lot of successfulpeople with big jobs or
(27:40):
businesses that are growing andthriving who have ADHD.
It's not easy, but you have amagical brain like I do, and
sometimes the consistency partis difficult for us, and
especially the consistency partin wellness.
So, yeah, and I think it'simportant for us to at least
remind ourselves that our personis important.
(28:02):
We are important, especially aswomen.
We have to continue to remindourselves that we're important
and to make sure that we aremaking ourselves.
Like you know, I always putmyself last.
It's like, oh, the business,the husband, the family, the,
the, and yeah, no, it's, I'mimportant, I need to take care
(28:23):
of myself.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
So yes, you have to make yourself a priority.
Exactly yeah, without a doubt.
My business coach always saysyou know I am valuable because I
am, and it's like you know.
She's always reminding me likeyou are valuable because you are
, not because because I am.
She's like it's not justbecause you hit a revenue goal
or you accomplish this.
And it's hard as anentrepreneur because we evaluate
(28:46):
ourselves based on suchdifferent success metrics and
she's always trying to get me tolike pull inward in terms of
success as an entrepreneur.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You know, I try and redefine success for me, because
success in most first worldcountries is money.
Right, what's success?
Oh, how much money am I making?
But for me, the success is thefact that I don't have to work
10 hours a day and I don't.
You know, success is for me tohave a flexible schedule, for me
to be able to see my parents mydad's 97.
(29:16):
My mom's 84.
You know, yeah, for me to bethere for my husband and my
family so we can define our.
I mean, we have, let's put itthis way, I'm so grateful that I
can define success for myself.
That's another thing that I'mreally grateful for, that I can
define that as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yes, and a lot of times they say I was just
reading a book called theIllusion of Money and it's that
you know really what we want.
It's not that we want money, wewant freedom.
And you know people don't likescream and yell like, yeah, I
want to work 18 hours a day tomake all this money.
We don't actually want that.
We want freedom of choice, youknow, and we want freedom to be
able to be ourselves and do thethings that we want to do, and
(30:00):
money sometimes affords us thatfreedom.
But a lot of that comes fromwithin.
First, in order to get thatfreedom is understanding who you
are and finding your passionsand following it.
Yeah, so what's on your bucketlist for the future, for you
personally and professionally?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I think that, ironically, I think these fires
are going to really make peoplea little bit more conscious
about preserving their memoriesand therefore positively
affecting people calling us andwanting to hire us, sort of from
the ashes we rise.
(30:35):
I mean not that this oh my gosh, I can't even imagine if
anything happens to the studio.
But so I think that's a goodthing.
We're just kind of gearing up.
I've gotten a lot of phonecalls.
I just went to New York to beon Good Day New York to talk
about the importance ofpreserving and how to even make
it so we're agile in casesomething happens in the house.
But personally I would.
(30:57):
You know I always want to takean international trip every year
and I've been doing that for atleast 20 years.
So this year might be Japan, Idon't know yet it's a big one.
Yes, so it depends on you know,on a lot of things like the
when and how and all that stuff.
But it's hard.
(31:17):
It's hard when you haveemployees and they rely on you
for a lot of information for youto be out three weeks.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Right, yes, exactly, that's a tough vacation to take,
but if you're going to go thatfar away, you almost need to.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yes, so that's one of the things.
And then just continue myself-care Like I really started
a good self-care routine that Iam comfortable with.
It's not, it's not superdifficult.
So just continuing that andcontinuing to feel better, to
feel lighter and healthier andmore clear about what we need to
(31:54):
do.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, but then the universe brings what you what
you think about is what youattract.
So I truly believe that, right,and so that's like talk about
manifesting Exactly, like really, what you think about is what
you attract, and I've met somany entrepreneurs that are like
that's exactly why I have whatI have and how I've created the
life that I've had is that Ijust believed in myself and I
(32:16):
had a vision and I had a goaland I just kept taking baby
steps towards getting to it.
And that's manifesting in itsmost basic sense.
It's so true, yeah, which is sogreat.
Well, I've taken up so much ofyour time and truly, once again
you're in LA and I just feel sograteful that you were even
willing to get on with us,because I feel like there's just
a lot going on in your universeover there.
(32:36):
So, before we go, I always liketo ask my guests if there's a
book that they would recommendthat has impacted them either
professionally or personally,because I'm a true believer that
books can change lives.
So is there a book you thinkour audience should read?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yes, there is a book by my coach, who I studied with
in 2015.
And I'm actually one of hercoaches now.
I went through her TAIL programand I'm also a life slash
business coach.
Love it, and her name is AndreaQuinn and she wrote the nine
essential tools for women to beable to accomplish anything.
Ooh, so yeah, it's great.
(33:12):
I, you know, I coach with hernine tools, I practice her nine
tools.
It's not anything that we neverheard of, but it's just the way
she puts it and it's a verymagical program and it's a very
magical book, and so I hope thatyou guys all look her up and
get her book and get her audio.
(33:33):
It's her voice and she's aslice of heaven.
She's amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I love that.
I have never heard of her and Ido try to read all the books
that all of my guests recommend,so I grow a lot by having so
many guests on.
It's wonderful.
So I love coaches.
I think coaching is soimportant, both personally and
in my career.
I think coaching is reallyimportant, yeah, and I think
it's a gift to be able to coachpeople, so I am so excited.
(33:58):
I will definitely read her book.
Thank you so much.
Is there anything that I didnot ask you that you want to
make sure we get out, that youwant to share?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
If people want to sign up for on our website it's
picturely P-I-C-T-U-R-L-I andthat's a weird spelling
P-I-C-T-U-R-L-Icom slash connect.
So if you want to connect withus, you can sign up for a seven
step guide on how to startorganizing your own photo
collection and it's a reallygood tool to just.
(34:28):
Obviously it's not going togive you everything that you
need because it is a longprocess, but you can sign up to
receive that.
Otherwise, reach out to us,follow us on all of our channels
(34:51):
.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
On Instagram and Facebook, we put out a lot of
great content that I think ishelpful.
Also, if you sign up, we do alot of workshops and, of course,
comes out.
I'll tag you on social media aswell, so everyone will be able
to go and find you.
So, haleigh, thank you so much.
This is really.
It makes me think.
This is kind of on my to-dolist is to deal with the many
boxes of photos that I have fromwhen my daughter was younger in
particular, and I know myfather has an attic full of
(35:12):
family photos and every time Igo up there it honestly just
gives me anxiety because I don'tknow what to do about them.
So I am so happy that I met youand hopefully our paths will
cross again.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I would love that.
So thank you so much.
I would love that, Jane.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Thank you for being a guest and have a beautiful day
and good luck to you and all ofyour neighbors in LA.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode of the House of
Jermar podcast, where wellnessstarts within.
We appreciate you being a partof our community and hope you
felt inspired and motivated byour guest.
If you enjoyed this episode,please write us a review and
(35:47):
share it with friends.
Building our reach on YouTubeand Apple Podcasts will help us
get closer to our mission toempower 1 million women to live
all in.
You can also follow us onInstagram at House of Jermar and
sign up to be a part of ourmonthly inspiration newsletter
through our website,houseofjermarcom.
If you or someone you knowwould be a good guest on the
(36:10):
show, please reach out to us atpodcast at houseofjermarcom.
This has been a House of JGermar production with your host
, Jean Collins.
Thank you for joining our house.
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