Ohh friends, we are SO incredibly excited to share a little sneak peek into something we have been working on over the last few months! Since the launch of Liz and Ryan, we have found a true passion in inspiring people to live an AMAZING life. By celebrating our zest for life and sharing what makes our lives AMAZING, we have realized that we truly can make a difference in the lives of others and encourage everyone to live amazingly!!! That, my friends, makes our hearts sing!
With our singing hearts, we are so so so excited to announce the AMAZING Life Experiences portion of the Liz and Ryan brand!!!
We have so many AMAZING things planned for this year and beyond! ;)…but we can’t give them all away at once! ;) (Truth is, we are still working out the details for many of them! More to come soon! ;) ). However, we can’t leave you hanging (and plus, we are bursting at the seems to share more with you! ;) ), so we are going to let you in on one of our favorite portions of the AMAZING Live Experiences… and that is our AMAZING Life Escapes! It just sounds so fun, doesn’t it?!? We all need an escape now and then! ;)
In a few months (dates to be announced soon!), we will be hosting a 3-night getaway for couples who are excited about escaping the everyday craziness of life to discover what makes their lives AMAZING! The Escape will take place in an incredibly beautiful location meant to provide the best of both worlds… both relaxation and adventure! Through a mix of workshops, hand-on adventures, and quiet time, we plan to provide an opportunity to dream about your AMAZING life, in hopes that every couple walks away with hearts full of unconditional love, joyful happiness, and authentic gratitude! The escape will be limited to a small number of couples to create an intimate experience that is sure to lead to a life full of amazingness! ;)
Ahhh! This is so much fun to get out there! We hope that you are as excited as we are! ;) If you are interested in learning more about the AMAZING Life Escapes or even the AMAZING Life Experiences in general, please check out our initial site and take a moment to sign-up to learn more! Your sign-ups will help us gage how much interest there is and how we can help make your lives more AMAZING! Ohh Happy Day!
With our papers in hand and journals by our sides, we sat in our favorite places and hunkered down to do the “hard work!” Ryan was at Starbucks surrounded by the music and energy of the coffee shop while I was on our couch cozy under a blanket sipping my tea in silence! We have learned that these are our spots that we go to when we really need to crank it out! We set out to complete the same set of papers… a Year-End worksheet we found through our fav, Chris Guillebeau! The 25 page worksheet put together by Susannah Conway (thank you Susannah!) was a little daunting at first glance, but we knew it was everything that we needed to let our hearts wander and see where we end up.
It is amazing what can happen when you take just a few hours in “your spot” to reflect, dream, and explore! The “hard work” quickly became an incredibly enjoyable experience. The answers flowed from our hearts onto the worksheet. At one point the worksheet said:
“Imagine you are sitting in that cafe again [for me, on my cozy couch! ;) ]. Across the table from you- looking utterly fabulous- is your future self from December 2015. She has three years’ worth of wisdom to share with you- what does she say? What does she tell you to let go of? What does she tell you to pay attention to… to believe in… to trust?”
I started (as instructed) with Dear Liz: and everything else just flowed from my heart. At one point while writing, I remember thinking “gees, that is everything that I needed to hear. Thank you God for giving me the chance -in advance- to hear your words through my future self. ;) I am going to share my letter with you, because it might just be God’s way of making sure everyone hears what they need to.
Dear Liz:
You are right where you are supposed to be. God has led you and Ryan down this path because He believes in you and has given you the talents you need to make a difference in the lives of others.
Although you may not feel like your audiance is large enough or you are not reaching as many people as you hoped- you should know that every single person you meet/touch has been impacted by you. Your audiance will grow organically- especially if you have patience. Trust that God will take care of you.
Focus on you and Ryan and don’t let what other people are doing distract you. Stay true to who you are and go where your heart may guide you. Embrace your love that you and Ryan share and know that God is using your relationship as a model/example for others- to give them faith and fill their hearts with love and joy.
Let go if the things that are not important. If it causes stress, it is probably not worth your time and energy. Let someone else take that off your hands. Trust in God and lead with your serving heart.
With love.
<3 You
As you begin this new year, we hope you are taking some time to reflect, dream, and explore! Find your spot and hunker down for some “hard work” that will definitely leave your hearts smiling!
Here are a few of our favorite Year-End guidelines to get you started:
Wahooo! We are so excited to be kicking off our 2013 a little early with a new AMAZING Life Manifesto Video! We are chatting all about Embracing Change in order to make 2013 your most AMAZING year yet! It is the beginning of a new year and is the perfect opportunity to let go of everything in the past and charge ahead! Seek out what you want to make happen and DO IT! ;)
We have SUPER FUN news to share with you all! We will be going on tour with Justin and Mary and their What’s Next Tour in January. That’s right, on a bus we go for 3 weeks to come to a city near you! We will be making 10 stops (sorry we messed that number up in the video!) within the United States beginning in LA on January 8th! Yes, we are super pumped to be out and about with our AMAZING friends Justin and Mary, Jeremy and Ashley, and our friends from Showit… but what we are honestly the most excited about is seeing the change that takes place in people’s heart as a result of going to this workshop! Mary is by far the BEST speaker we have ever heard speak. EVER! And she does not hold back. She will be the push you need to kickstart your 2013 and make it the most AMAZING year of your life! And for all of our photographer friends, Justin will be teaching a lighting portion of the workshop that will rock your world! He is so incredibly talented and we could probably say has taught us 99.9% of what we know about lighting! He is AMAZING!
Ok- so hopefully we have now talked you into joining us on one of the stops across the country! It keeps getting better…. not only do we have big hugs to share with you when we see you at one of the stops, we have a discount code just for you to help you get there!!! Go to http://thewhatsnexttour.com/#/tickets and use the code: lizandryan to get $50.00 off your full day seat! Seriously friends, do everything you can to make it to a stop of the What’s Next Tour. We are so excited for you to kick your 2013 off right!
Let go of 2012 and embrace the new beginning! Embrace Change!!
Yesterday we wrote about hosting our 2012 Annual Review. In previous years we would book a hotel room on the Eastern Shore for a few days and host our Liz and Ryan Annual Review. We figured that if other businesses can host their own retreat offsite, why couldn’t we?
This year we did things a little differently. Instead of spending over $500 on a hotel room for a few nights we decided to host our annual retreat at our own personal spa. The only thing is, we didn’t actually have our own personal spa. :) However, we didn’t let that small little detail stop us.
We came up with the idea while we were in New York City visiting Santa at Macy’s for our AMAZING Life Holiday Advent Calendar. While we were there, we walked into a shop near Rockefeller center called Rain Africa. The store had all sorts of AMAZING smelling bath salts, scrubs, candles, and anything else you could possibly want at your own personal spa.
When we got home, we immediately began creating our plan to turn our guest bedroom and bathroom into our own personal spa retreat. Below are a few ideas you can use to create a spa at home.
Step 1: Write out a list of all the things you would typically find at the perfect spa.
Our list included:
White Plush Bath Robes
Slippers
A Cozy Blanket
Bath Salts/Bath Bombs
Bubble Bath
Body Lotion/Cream
Massage oil
Hot tea or coffee
Chocolate
Candles
Soothing Music
Fancy Bottled Water
Air Fresheners
Manicure/Pedicure Supplies
Step 2: Pick up the supplies listed above online.
We ordered Bath Salts and Body Cream from Rain Africa, robes from Pottery Barn, fancy bottled water, air fresheners, and ther-a-Pe candles from Home Goods, and we used our iPhone with Spotify for music. We were able to pick up everything for our own personal spa retreat for less than $300. And the best thing is we get to keep the robes and still have a bunch of leftover items to host many more of our own spa retreats.
Step 3: Check into your guest room.
We have learned how important it is to escape from our everyday routines during our annual review. We still wanted the experience to be an escape, so we took all of our spa retreat supplies and checked into our guest bedroom. Fortunately for us, housekeeping had our room ready when we arrived. :)
The best thing about creating your own personal spa is that you can make it as extravagant or simple as you wish. For some, a candle and soothing music may be all you need to turn your guest room into a relaxing retreat.
Now that you know a few of the things we included in our own personal spa, what one thing will you be including in yours?
“I think we should all get back to building that rocket ship we dreamed of when we thought about what our life would be about” – Bob Goff, Love Does
I remember being young and dreaming about what I would be when I grew up. I loved building things with Legos and K’nex. My first big Lego project I remember was a pirate ship with sails and all. There must have been over 1000 pieces, but I knew that if I worked hard, and asked for help when I needed it, that before I knew it, the pirate ship would be complete.
Shortly after my swashbuckling days were over, I moved onto K’nex. At the time I was growing up, K’nex had just been released as the new must have holiday toy. For Christmas I received a giant orange case of K’nex. The possibilities were endless! Eventually, K’nex came out with a roller coaster set. I saved all my allowances for months and looked under every seat cushion for long forgotten coins. When I finally had enough change, I walked into the toy store with my rolls of nickels and dimes and walked out with a box of K’nex that was nearly bigger than I was. Soon my dreams would come true and I would become a real life roller coaster designer. Being older and more experienced at building things, it only took me a few short days before the entire set was complete. It was this love of building things that eventually lead me to pursue an engineering degree.
At the time, I may not have realized it, but in addition to creating a really cool roller coaster, I was also learning how to dream BIG. When we were little, we had no cares in the world. Building a rollercoaster in real life seemed just as easy as it was to build one out of K’nex or a pirate ship out of Legos.
However, along the journey of life, it seems as though we often forget this simple life lesson. That lesson that no dream is too big and that anything is possible. Instead, we often get bogged down with our to do list and don’t make time to dream…
Four years ago we decided to change that. We stumbled upon a blog post by the AMAZING Chris Guillebeau titled: How to Conduct Your Own Annual Review. After reading the post, we decided that we would conduct our own annual review. That was the year our lives changed… we started our business at our very first Annual Review! Ever since that year, we have been conducting an annual review. Be sure to check out Chris’s post to learn how you can hold your own annual review too.
In our first annual review, we began assessing our lives, and the dreams we had. We were both working well paying “safe” corporate jobs but something was missing. Although we enjoyed what we did, we had a sense that there was something more that we were being called to do. Instead of living our own dreams each day, we were instead just being paid to live out someone else’s dream.
We started our very first annual review by heading to Spoons, our favorite coffee shop, (Check out our promo video that was partially filmed at Spoons here), and wrote down our dreams for the upcoming year. While we sat there, we tried to think back to our days as children with huge imaginations and dreams the size of the universe. It was in that moment, that we dreamed a BIG dream of one day running our own business. Liz had loved photography as a young child, and as an electrical engineer, I really loved the technical aspects of cameras so we decided to start our own photography business. At the moment we didn’t really realize how big this dream could become. But, now four years later, and 75+ weddings photographed, we have realized that our dreams can never be too big.
I am sure by now you have probably heard nearly a thousand times about dreaming BIG dreams and that you can do anything you dream of. Although this is true, just dreaming a BIG dream, doesn’t make it a reality. The next step after dreaming up your BIG dream is going out and actually DOING. And that is what is so amazing about hosting your own annual review. It is the first step of DOING.
We hosted our annual review just before Christmas this year and wanted to share a few things we did to hopefully inspire you to have your very own annual review and get you one step closer to living your own AMAZING Life! In addition to following Chris’s post as our guide, we have started incorporating a few of our own ideas each year.
Step One:Go somewhere new that will stimulate your creativity and separate you from your normal routines.
In past years we have gone to the Inn at Perry Cabin on the Eastern shore. We love to sit by the fire quietly to dream BIG. They also serve afternoon tea… a delight we normally don’t take time to enjoy in or normal routine.
This year, we decided to create our own Inn at Perry Cabin experience in our home. We turned our guest bedroom into a spa and checked in as if we were checking into a hotel. We slept in our guest bed, relaxed in the bath in our guest bathroom and made our own afternoon tea to enjoy while conducting our annual review. (Want to create your own spa retreat at home too? Check back tomorrow when we will be sharing some ideas on how to make your guest room a perfect retreat for two).
Step Two: Create an agenda, but leave room for relaxation and spontaneity.
As with most things in life, it helps to have an agenda or rough outline of things you would like to cover during your annual review. However, be sure to leave room to be spontaneous. If you are inspired to watch a movie in bed together, or have an afternoon dance party, then do it. I believe that relaxation and spontaneity are two key factors to dreaming BIG dreams. By letting our minds truly wonder, we will think of ideas that are inspired by the things in which we are truly passionate.
Step Three: Disconnect.
Four years ago when we decided to start our business, we didn’t have iPhones and free Wi-Fi everywhere we went. It was easy then to focus entirely on us, our dreams, and our plans to make those dreams a reality. Having an effective annual review requires intense focus, soul searching, and asking hard questions. Emails, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are distractions. Disconnect from social media, turn off your phones, and focus your attention on your goals and dreams for the next year.
What are you waiting for? it’s time to get back to building your own rocket ships!
