hey hey

It’s here!! Wedding season has arrived!

It’s about to be ca-ray-ha-zayyyyyyy this year with back to back wedding weekends for months. And the marathon starts tomorrow. I’m so pumped.

To prepare myself for the amazingness to come I’ve spent the last couple weeks kinda laying low. Taking a little vacation to North Vancouver. Spending time catching up with friends, but also just having days with myself. Just doing things as they came to me. No agenda. No schedule. What’s crazy though is that I was taking time to relax, and let go. But in doing that I found myself owning my own story. Allowing myself to be vulnerable, which scared the shit out of me. And making big decisions. And letting them be known to people in my life. No longer just thinking about them but taking more action in doing them. I can’t think of a better way to spend the last few weeks before the wedding season really started to take off.

But my adventures don’t stop there. Every weekend I’m heading off somewhere. I’m also obsessively looking at summer concerts and I’m going to be buying tickets galore. And I’m headed back to Canada!!  Meg Courtney and I have the same birthday. How rad is that to have the same birthday as one of your best friends?!!  Today she messaged saying our birthday is coming, come up here and we’ll roadtrip to Vancouver. So I looked up flights and thought what the hell. Booked. Messaged back with… booked a flight, pick me up at 10:45 that Sunday.

It’s going to be an epic summer!

And now… it’s time for a cold beverage. CHEERS FRIENDS!!!

Photos of me by Justine Russo & Laura Anne

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12 hours after arriving in Santa Barbara, California for the UNITED 2014 Conference I ran into Kevin Sturm. He’s such an amazing guy who heads up planning UNITED. He comes to me and says “Hey! So did you talk to Meg? Cause I’m wondering if you two can move your talk up to Monday at 1?”

My response –  “Pshh ya of course we can! We’ll figure it out.”

Inside… HOLY SHIT!  Meg Courtney and I had some amazing opportunities over the last few weeks to talk at UNITED 2014 and also at WPPI about Specialism and designing a business that cares about you. Meg and I aren’t planners. There is no secret to that. We thrive on spontaneity and impulsiveness. Thus why we said YES we’d love to talk on Monday (which is TOMORROW) instead of Wednesday. But the truth is, our talk wasn’t ready. We spent days over skype building an outline. And really it didn’t take us days, we just would get distracted by sunshine and guacamole. Living in different countries and the two of us ALWAYS on the road we decided to make an outline and then Sunday before UNITED we’d sit down and put together our talk. We’d have 3 days to get it together. No big deal.

Well now we had 24 hours. So we went shopping.

While shopping we were reminded of a conversation with our business coach, Jeff Jochum.  He once told us to just get drunk and things will flow and before we know it we’ll have our talk. So we hit up the hotel bar for appetizers and drinks. Although we forgot to order the appetizers, oops! And 2 hours later we had one slide made, an intro video and a $110 bar
tab. A run in the ocean, comfy clothes, and food had us back on track. Sitting in the lobby til 3am.

We went through each point that we wanted to make and who should take the lead on that point. And up came ‘Giving your business a purpose.’ We quickly decided I would take the lead on that point. Ya, ya. Cool.

This last year I discovered and began owning my purpose. And I’ve shared it with others, one-on-one or in small groups. But I had yet to share it with a room of 100 or more people staring at me. It’s personal. I played it off to Meg that ya I could do it and not cry. Honestly I didn’t know if I could. But, if I did, oh well. This is me unapologetically being me. Authentic and raw. And the first time I shared it, I cried. And the response has been overwhelming. I shared it again at WPPI and now I’m sharing it here. To encourage you to find your purpose.

When I was 12 years old my dad passed away at the age of 33 from a massive heart attack. THIRTY THREE YEARS OLD. I am my fathers daughter to the core. And honestly, for most of my life that scared me. He didn’t leave behind a legacy. I can’t tell you much about him. He didn’t change the world. He didn’t make a huge impact on people and their lives. He had a lot of friends, but didn’t make a difference. He worked A LOT. Sometimes 4 remote jobs at once. And not his dream jobs. He didn’t pursue any passion. And he was unhappy. As much as he tried to play off he was happy, he wasn’t. He suppressed his unhappiness with more work and lots of alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t a bad person. But he did show me a life I didn’t want. Yet I’m like him in so many ways. I feared I would be the same way. Until I decided that wasn’t for me. I would CHOOSE something else. That I would use this as the push to live differently. His life showed me how short this life is. And I’m damn certain it’s going to be sweet. My 5 year old, my family, my friends, my clients, will have something to share about me when I’m gone. They will know what I stood for. And I will have impacted their lives in some way. I refuse to just exist. 

I jump before I can talk myself out of it, because I don’t want to miss out. I’d rather make the wrong decision quickly than the right one too late. I believe in taking chances, there is no better time than the present. I believe that a failure isn’t failing, unless you don’t get back up. I believe in living out loud. Why not? What have you got to lose? Great reward is only found with great risk.

I dare people to do epic shit. To stop overthinking and live in the moment. You’re only guaranteed now. I show them how. And I give them that little push to do it. Once they do, they do it on there own from there out. They just need to believe they’re capable. They, YOU, are.

Photography just happens to be the tool I’m using to share that. To reach people. To dare them. It’s more than just a photo. I’m focused on encouraging, pushing, DARING people to (as my friend Andrew calls it) have “an attitude of reckless abandon towards enjoying life.” It’s much richer when you do. I don’t want you to let it pass you by.

Don’t just exist. Have purpose, focus, reason. Why do you do what you do? Live a life you are proud of. A life that you’d be proud of your children to live, and share. This life is yours for the taking. What are you doing with it? Are you proud of it? What are you leaving behind? What will others remember about you? I know this isn’t easy to answer. But it’s beyond worth it to think about it and discover what it is.

Yes, I’m daring you right now! 😉

Thank you so much to Mary Marantz, Suzy Van Dyke, Alyssa Turner, Jeremy Kester, Maggie Henriques, & Matthew Coppersmith for snapping some pics of us and sharing. We appreciate you and everyone else SO much!

And I have to gives some serious love to my business coach, Jeff Jochum. Papa Jeff. He is like a father to me. I even bum him for coffee money as if I really am his kid 😉  He helped me break down these walls of fear that I put up. Thinking I was protecting myself from living a life like my father when really putting up those walls I was living the exact same life. I’m living life to it’s fullest because of him. Thank you, Papa.

Interested in getting help with finding the WHO and WHY of you? Check out http://teamxbiz.com

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I’m home!  For now…. 😉

The last few weeks have been INSANE with travel. I’ll be sharing more of that in the days to come. There is so much I want to share. And I’m so excited to share it I haven’t been able to sit still long enough to even collect all of the photos!

I returned home to Montana after being away for the UNITED and WPPI conferences. After being home for just a day I took off to Canada. Not even getting a moment to let everything sink in. Just letting go. Driving without looking back. Singing as loud as possible. And letting dreams take flight. It was a real quick trip though.

With day light savings on Sunday I managed to get on the road late. Not a shocker, I always get on the road late. But this just made it even later. Note to self- Don’t try to cross international borders on a weekend day. Lines from hell I tell ya. Then a stop at IKEA in Seattle to fill my car with as much stuff as possible. Not even kidding…..

I filled my jeep. Not too bad for a trip to IKEA by myself 😉

Actually I made 2 lists for IKEA. A ‘NEED To Have‘ list and a ‘Would Love To Have‘ list. Went through and grabbed everything on my need list. Checked out. Brought my car around to loading. I had 2 carts full of huge items. Managed to get them packed into the car. And, then rechecked my want list to see if I had some room to squeeze stuff. I did. So I drove my car back to the parking lot to park. Parked. Hopped out of the car. Slammed the door. Took 2 steps.

I locked my keys in the car.

At 6:20pm. In Seattle. Almost 500 miles from home. While on a detour on my way home.

I sat there sitting on my bumper for 40 minutes waiting for someone to come unlock my car. Laughing. Thinking of what an adventure life is. Not mad, upset, irritated or even annoyed. Just giggling. Appreciating the “craziness.” How blessed am I to live life this way. That locking my keys in the car in the middle of a trip becomes a fun story.

I could have easily chose this to be a downer. But it really is whatever you make it. What power we have to decide how to live and how to see & react to things. You are amazing. You are worthy. This is YOUR life. Your adventure. Your journey. You decide how to live it. The only thing that matters, is that you really LIVE it.

Life is an adventure. And adventure….

Is what YOU make of it. 

* Thank you to my dear friend, Jeremy Kester, for this awesome image of me. Taken during a random stop we made in the Mojave Desert on our roadtrip from Santa Barbara to Vegas.

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When it’s right, you know it’s right. And you go for it. Jump right in. Ann met Janssen during a night out with friends. After giving her a hard time all night she thought he was a bit of a dick. Telling her she was in his chair and so forth. But before going home he gave her his number to text and let him know she made it home ok. Ya know, just in case. Well, she did. She texted him and let him know she made it home. And the day after Christmas they went on their first date. And the rest is history. A month-ish later she moved in. Even though she had a lease on her own apartment, she moved in with Janssen. And continued renting her apartment just for her cat. A whole place for her cat to roam and they visited each day 🙂  Seriously it’s love if you rent an apartment for your cat so you can live with your man. And if he makes you laugh like this…. keep him.

Ann is Canadian. Irrelevant but throwing it in there. We said “sorry” a lot. She’s a prairie girl. She came to me and said take me on an adventure. Into the wilderness. “I want my family to see wilderness.” As you wish, girlfriend.

I had so much fun with these two. Our mini roadtrip up north into the mountains. Lots of laughs as we stumbled over rocks trying to find a trail. Chasing fog. We lost… Fog-1 Jackie, Janssen, Ann-0.  Searching for grouse. Stopping at a tractor on the side of the road for a quick photo. The list goes on. It was such a random go with the flow session I couldn’t decide which images to pick. Sooooo enjoy lots! They’re good looking though so they’re easy on the eyes 😉

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A cool, brisk breeze blowing off the river, frost over the field, and the fog slowly lifting. She’d reach out and slip her hand into his.

Chris would look at Raechel and whisper. She’d giggle. And she wouldn’t stop giggling the whole session. Their signature move, Chris dipping in and whispering as she leaned in more and would start to giggle.

I followed these two as they continued whispering and giggling. And I started to catch myself giggling right along with Raechel.

And as time went on I discovered that Chris’ ham socks were part of what the giggles were about. Chris couldn’t decide if he should show me his ham socks or not. And Raechel giggled about the fact that he had even worn them. Which she didn’t know until he had asked if she thought I’d want to see them 😉
Chris & Raechel, I think you’re pretty stellar! Never stop grabbing each others hands, leaning in, whispering and giggling. Seriously. Don’t ever stop doing that! 🙂

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