I'm a little embarrassed to admit this but I've never read a business book. Not really. I've skirted around them … flicked through them … put them back on the shelf.

Stephen on the other hand has shelves of them. He reads them and fills me in on the concepts. It's worked for many years :-)

So a friend comes for the weekend and hands me this book … tells me I MUST read it: The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth by Chris Brogan, one of Stephen’s favourites.

I think it's the title that grabbed me. I’ve always felt we've bordered on the right side of being freaks. Chris Brogan describes freaks as not always fitting in, not being big fans of settling or compromising, and always looking for ways to allow their freakishness to be an asset…

Yep, that sounds like us :-)

There are so many great points in the book, but one thing that resonates strongly is that like minded people come together, become a tribe, a community. We get them, they get us.

I know a lot of our clients opt for "the road less travelled" - we love them for it! They're choosing to do things differently from the norm. And successfully building their businesses by choosing to be freaks.

We love being associated with people like us, who think like we do - the people out there training photographers to be themselves, and yes to be a bit freaky! Aspire, Brett Harkness Photographic Training, The Trained Eye, Engage, Lars Neumann, Brett Prestidge, The Edmonsons, Zero Gravity…They’re putting themselves out there and encouraging like-minded people to be UNAFRAID of doing things differently, not compromising, not settling … of allowing their weirdness to be an asset.

So to all our freaky friends we say, thank you for being you. And thank you for supporting us and allowing us to be freaks right along with you.

And thank you my lovely friend for insisting I read the book.

Sonya xx

PS Ian also likes We are All Weird, by Seth Godin