Hey babes! Today we are diving headfirst into a topic near and dear to my heart: flat track racing! Even if you’ve never been out on or around the race track, there are plenty of connections we can make between motorcycle racing and running our businesses. I have learned SO many lessons from flat track racing. Let’s dive into those connections!

What Is Flat Track Racing? (1:01)

Learn To Fall (2:32)

When In Doubt, Rev The Throttle (5:11)

Fuel Your Mind (6:12)

Check Your Brakes (6:52)

Invest In A Pit Crew (7:29)

Don’t Wait For The Green (9:03)

Don’t Look Behind (11:13)

Display Your Trophies (11:49)

Support Other Racers  (13:44)

Stay In Your Own Lane (15:25)

Bonus Tip (16:29) 

Review the Transcript:

Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at quiannamurray.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party ready? Loves though.

Morning, beautiful. a two day is another bright, shining and beautiful day even if the weather isn’t looking so hot in your hometown, I want you to know that I am sending you sunshine all the way from Arizona, and hope you have an incredibly blessed and productive week. Today I am diving headfirst into comparing running a business and being a business owner, and how it compares to flat track racing. So if you’re not familiar with flat tracking, or flat track racing, that is when you are racing a motorcycle and you are literally going in circles. Now I spent a lot of time on the track as my brother raced for many years, even at a young age by the age of 16. My brother was an AMA pro flat track racer. Now, this was a pivotal moment for my business. If you go all the way back to day one, at the beginning of this podcast, I really share exactly how my business started. And it started on the racetrack. So now that things are rolling, and I’m having a lot of fun with this podcast, introducing you to really fun guest and sharing different topics about small business creation, and content creation, photography, all things about really just being a cheerleader for you and your business. I thought it’d be fun to do a little spin on my roots, and to share 10 Key Tips How running a business is like flat check racing, okay, now, even if you aren’t familiar with racing at all, or maybe you didn’t even have your own business, these are just a compiled list.

In no particular order, I should tell you that I hope you find motivating and inspiring. All right, ready, let’s roll. So number one, learn to fall. Okay, so just like running a business and riding a bike or riding a motorcycle, we need to learn how to fall before we learn how to ride. Now, I know in just personal experience, and I see this a lot even though you can totally judge me. I’m not a parent yet. But I see a problem with parents trying to teach their children how to ride a bike. And they never teach them how to fall, how to properly fall like I mean, it’s inevitable like you’re going to fall. Okay. So this is one thing that our daddy always taught us, when it came to trying new sports, trying new things, and especially getting on wheels with a motor, oh my gosh, of course. But you need to learn how to follow you need to learn where to place your arms. When you’re riding your bike and you crash and burn. You need to know as a small child like, trust me, I know things happen and things get out of control very quickly, especially with whiskey throttle, I get it. But you need to know, as a child, what is safer if you’re riding your bike on the sidewalk, you need to roll towards the grass if you can, okay, you do not want to fall into the street. Right. So these are just tiny little examples of ways that we can learn how to follow when riding a bike or learning how to ride a motorcycle. But then when it comes to your business, you also need to learn how to fall and basically learn how to fall on your face. And just pick yourself right back up. Now a couple ways that you can do this when you were starting your business is making sure that when you are making that transition either starting a business from scratch, or hoping to go full time with your with your passion and turn it into profits.

Trust me, I’m your biggest cheerleader for that. But you have got to learn and and have a good cushion to know that if you fall on your face and don’t get any income for a certain amount of time, like you’re not going to fail. Like your your business should not fail simply because you don’t have the funds. Okay, we should not be putting all of our eggs in one basket and just kind of hoping it works out like don’t get me wrong. I am the queen of taking risks, especially with finances and I have an entrepreneurial heart to the to the bone if that doesn’t make sense. But like that is who I am to the core. And I know I make calculated risks and sometimes it’s a little too risky. I have a little too much faith that things always work out. But they do without getting sidetracked. I just want to share the power and understanding that We’re all gonna fall, it’s inevitable, but let’s learn how to fall and how to do it safely. So we really don’t hurt ourselves whether that’s financially or physically. Okay, number two, when in doubt, rev the throttle. So if you have ever gotten on a motorcycle before, you cannot hesitate, I repeat, you can not hesitate when you are about to fall, if you feel like you’re getting a little wobbly, like you just have to gas it, and get out of those situations. Because it’s when you hesitate or you think or you slow down, it’s when you’re gonna fall. Like that’s just, that’s just inevitable. And this also goes with just like driving a car too, right? So you cannot wait for the people around you to make decisions for you, you have to be at least a certain level of being an aggressive driver for your safety. Okay, so sometimes we’re going to hit those milestones in our business where we feel like, Oh, I’m a little nervous, or, you know, I don’t want to take that next leap of faith.

And I’m here to remind you, you gotta go full throttle, full throttle will get you out of those hiccups out of those sticky, muddy situations, it’ll help you to prevent falling, okay? Number three, you need to fuel your mind, just like you gas up your engine. Alright, so this is just as important for your small business, when it comes to education. It comes to always learning and taking care of your tire pressure, right. So back to motorcycles like making sure that the tire pressure is correct, making sure that the oil is changed, and everything is running smoothly. Like this is just like your mind, soul and body. Just like the engine of a car or a motorcycle, okay, you need to make sure that those are in tip top shape, and that you’re truly investing in that education and investing in constantly learning. Number four, check your brakes, baby. Okay, this is so important. As we know, checking your brakes on any type of vehicle is vital for all all types of racing. But just like business, you need to make time to rest, you absolutely have to prioritize resting for your mental health, for your physical endurance. And that’s another whole other avenue I can share about creating rest for creativity, okay, so when you truly let your body heal, take time to rest. It’s all about checking those brakes. Number five, invest in a pit crew. Okay, so in the racing world, it’s really important to have a pit crew. And sometimes it’s just your dad. That’s like, the pit crew. And if you’re like us, it was you know, just a very, very, very small group. And then a whole bunch of uncles that always pitched in, or they were just all of my dad’s best friends that would pitch in and look after my brother and look after my mom and I.

And when you invest in your pit crew, which just like in business is hiring out, outsourcing, taking advantage of people that know more than you. This is where you’re really going to succeed. Because when you have the battle, you have your back covered by people who love you and want to see you succeed. That’s when you’re really really going to win those races, okay, and you’re gonna, you’re gonna hit those milestones for your business. And I want to slip this in here, too. This is kind of like a five and a half pointer is making sure that you’re sharing your love and appreciation for your fans. So sometimes your fans or just your parents, and maybe your best friend, or your boyfriend or girlfriend, like it could just be one or two core people in your life. But your fans are what matter. They’re the ones that are showing up and bringing you water or Gatorade. They’re the ones that love buying the T shirts for your races or supporting your business in any way they can. Now, don’t get it twisted, they’re not going to hop on the bike and push you away. Like they’re not actually going to join the race with you. You have to do this on your own. But showing that love and respect for them goes a long way. Now, this is another trick.

This is number six. This is a like a strategy for racing. And my brother taught me this years ago, I’m not too sure exactly who taught him this. Mike, if you’re listening, you have to tell me who you got this from. But on the track, they have these lights. So depending on the race, and the location, sometimes they’ll have flags, so they’ll they’ll waive the Yellow Flag and then they’ll waive the green flag and the green flag obviously means go. But some of the races will have a light system that just looks like a traffic light. So it’ll have a red light on top, the yellow in the middle and the green on the bottom. So for this key tip or this little correlation between running a business and racing motorcycles. The trick is is to go on the absence of yellow and not wait for the green. Okay, so basically if I can like paint you a picture if you’re on the starting line and you’re ready, your engine is revving you’re ready to go you See that eagerness in your eye, you have your eye on that hole shot, which is that first corner, right into the first turn. And you, you wait until you see that yellow disappear because that green is popping up next. So when you can wait for that yellow, like the absence of yellow, you know that green is coming next. So this is a great metaphor for your business. Sometimes we don’t get those green lights. Sometimes we are in that caution area like zone for way too long. And we wait to be told what to do. We wait for that permission, we wait for that green light Tuesday. Okay, baby, here’s your sign.

And the whole thing about racing is of course, you don’t want to jump that line. Because if you do go too soon, if you go before that light is green, then they’ll push you in the back though, like they’ll pause the race. And they’ll kick you to the back of the race, like behind all the racers, which of course is not good for racing. But same thing in life, too, right? Like you don’t want to jump the gun too fast. Which brings me back to number one to revisit that like you know, we need to learn how to fall and learn how to fail. But I just really loved that little key tip about you don’t wait for that green light, you go in the absence of yellow. Okay, number seven, moving on. This is another racing tactic do not I repeat, DO NOT look behind you, the track is ahead of you. In fact, when you are spinning around those racetracks so fast, you literally can throw off your like aerodynamics by like whipping your head around and looking at the racers behind you, when you take your eyes off of the road and what is ahead of you. And the turns ahead, that’s when you’re in a danger zone, because you’re focused on what’s going on behind you. Okay, let’s not do that. Always, always, always keep your head up. And looking forward.

Number eight, display your trophies. Okay, so this is so important. So I want you to imagine a little kid. Now this doesn’t have to be just specific to flat track racing, this could be a soccer trophy. This could be a swimming award, whatever it is. But I want you to think back when you were about eight years old, and you won that trophy, and you were just so proud. Like you just displayed that everywhere. You took group photos of it in the little pizzeria in your local hometown, after your end of the year party with all your teammates. And it was just like, everyone was just so proud of you and that trophy and you put it in your window sills. And as you’ve got home in your bedroom, or you put it on your dresser, and I just, I don’t know, it just reminds me of my childhood and the trophies that we would win. And as children, we were so proud of them, I want you to apply that same concept to your business, we have got to be proud. And so, so grateful for those awards and show them off. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know what age that is exactly. But after a certain time in our life, we feel like we’re almost embarrassed or maybe like too showy or to braggy to share about our awards, our publications, and just all of our accomplishments and accolades. Okay, it is so important to share them, post about them. Talk about them.

Remind your current clients, your past clients about these awards. Because to be perfectly honest, I think deep down they will respect you and kind of honestly think that you are just the expert, as opposed to someone who doesn’t share those things, or who kind of kind of ignores them or kind of hush hush about it. Like No, babe, this is your time to shine. So just like you’re winning those flat track races on the racetrack and you earn those trophies, show them off. All right, and number nine is support other racers. Now, if you’re not familiar with the flat track community, I just want to give you a little glimpse into what it’s like in the pit crew and just being around all those racers. These guys look so tough. Like they’re all these Harley looking guys. And so they they look really mean and tough, but I promise they’re all really really soft teddy bears, the kindest, just coolest dudes ever. And I, I firmly believe in the power of community. And it honestly started at the racetrack for me. Knowing that you can count on the other racers for something as simple as a tool that you may need for your bike or a part that you just need is something that you know came crashing and burning and you need some help putting something together. I mean, depending on the racers around you is really going to help you win that race and they will be supportive of you. Just like your business. It’s important to lean on your competitors.

We are not in competition with each other. We are in competition with ourselves, okay, we every day are striving to be better photographers that are business owners better creatives and just better humans every single day. And so if you put your love in Support and those around you, we all grow, we can all raise our prices, we can all create experiences, that we know that if we’re too busy to take on business, we can pass them off to our friends in the community and even to our biggest competitors. And we know that they will be well taken care of. Because at the end of the day, when one of us wins, we all win. Alright, and number 10, this one is on my favorites. And I kind of mentioned this a little bit before earlier, but stay in your own lane Bay, okay, keep your head down, work on yourself, love yourself. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing around you. You’re in control of your own lane. Okay, I know, as a business owner, we can feel like we have to juggle so many different things. And, and who’s telling you to do that. I mean, last I checked as a business owner, like you’re in charge, like, you know, like, I think that’s kind of funny, we put all these super unrealistic expectations on ourselves.

And we think about all these deadlines that we’re creating, and these projects that we’re implementing, and all these things that we want to get done. And we’re just always in Rush mode, and you’re, you’re in charge, like last time I checked, you’re the boss. Okay, so let’s stop putting all that pressure on ourselves and trying to run in circles do what everyone else is doing. And truly, truly, truly, from the bottom of my heart, stay in your own lane. Alright, and as if so we’ve already done 10 These are 10 tips. I have one more bonus for you. Okay, and the bonus is enjoy the victory lap. So if you win a race for you know, flat track, racing, motocross, whatever any type of racing, you will, you’ll pass through that checkered flag, and then you super round and the winner will get to do one lap holding the checkered flag. And usually these guys as they get older, they love to show off. And sometimes they’ll do wheelies around the track as they are waving their flag, and or they’ll like, they’ll slip a girlfriend on. Or maybe they’re one of their kids. And it’s just like a fun victory lap. Now, why this is so important, and why I say this as kind of a bonus for you is we have to like you just have to promise me that when you start finding success in your business, even the tiniest tiniest of wins, that you truly make time for that victory lap. When you are circling that track as a racer, you’ve just accomplished that when it’s just it’s just an a surreal feeling. Everyone is cheering for you, it feels like a I don’t know, it’s kind of like a blur and like it just like it goes by so fast and so slow at the same time.

But that’s what I really want you to carry into your daily life as well, especially for your business. We absolutely have to make time to celebrate, the more we can celebrate and just party and just feel like gosh, you know, like soaking in these moments is what it’s all about. So I hope you found this helpful and inspiring. I really love sharing these fun stories about my past and kind of tying them into my future and tying them into small business ownership and creative owners like all these things. I’m just I’m very passionate about small business and I love creating these like metaphors and similes about life. So as always, I am cheering for you, babe. I hope that you continue to grow, invest in yourself rev those engines and just let’s just throw it into fourth gear. Okay, let’s go. Hope you have a beautiful week and cannot wait to chat soon. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie weakly thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quiannamarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.