Board of Life Directors, surrounding ourselves by AMAZING people

Dreaming, Our Dreams  //  4th October 2012

Earlier this year while we were visiting our good friends Justin & Mary we chatted about the need to have more AMAZING people in our lives. We jokingly said that we needed to create a match.com for small business owners to help us connect with other similar minded people. Although we were joking about this idea, it did spark another idea…

All large businesses and many nonprofits have a Board of Directors. One definition we have heard for a board of directors is a group of people that provides a company with direction and advice. We continued to think on this and thought, why can’t we have a Board of LIFE Directors that would provide us with direction and advice for our LIFE. Why couldn’t we have a Board of LIFE Directors!

Last week, as we were reflecting on our AMAZING Life Manifesto Video: Surround Yourself by Incredible People, we knew we had to turn our idea into a reality.

We came up with a short mission statement to describe our Board of LIFE Directors:

“The goal of our board of life directors is to surround ourselves by amazing people that we can turn to for advice. People that live a similar lifestyle, have similar values, and people that are not afraid to tell us the honest truth when necessary.”

Next, we came up with two simple duties for our board members.

1. Support us and encourage others in living an AMAZING life.
Our lives are short and are not meant to be lived in stress, working jobs we are not passionate about, or living someone else’s dream. As a member of our Board of LIFE Directors you are already living your own AMAZING life, we only ask that you help us to encourage others to do the same. We would love your continued support and feedback on additions to our AMAZING Life Manifesto, ways to improve our message and ideas on how to help others live their own AMAZING life.

2. Provide us with true and honest feedback
In order to grow as a business and a couple we need people that are willing to provide us with true and honest feedback.  People that are not afraid to tell us when an idea we think is amazing may actually be off the mark. People that will keep us in check and push us each day to live better, follow our dreams, and never give up. Only with true and honest feedback, will we be able to improve our business, our brand, our message, our life, and the lives of others.

Next, we created a fun little invitation and began inviting our board members:

 

 

Currently we have filled half of our board member positions with four AMAZING people.  Once we fill out our entire board we plan to ask each member “What does Living an AMAZING life mean to you?” We will then feature each board member and their responses on our blog!

So, this brings us back to the main point of writing this post.  We want to encourage everyone to create their own Board of LIFE Directors that will help them to live a more AMAZING life.

Over the weekend, while you are watching the baseball playoffs (let’s go O’s), take the following simple steps to create your own Board:

1. Write out a Mission Statement for your Board.  Not sure where to start? Think about what strikes a passion in you, or areas in your life and business in which you need a little extra guidance and craft your Mission Statement around those things.

2. Create a short list of simple duties for your board members.  Most people already have super busy lives so be sure to make the duties simple enough that they do not overwhelm your board.

3. Brainstorm a list of people that you would like to have on your board.  We hope to have 8 members on our board but you could have 2 or 12.  This is your board and there are no rules.  Also, you can always add to your board in the future, so don’t worry if you can’t fill all your spots right away.

4. Invite your board members. We created a fun graphic and invited our members via email but feel free to be creative when asking your members to join the board!

For another perspective on creating your own Board of LIFE Directors, be sure to check out Justin and Mary Marantz’s (current members of our board) blog today!

AMAZING Life Manifesto: Say I Love You

Amazing Life Manifesto, Dreaming  //  1st October 2012

Do you remember the first time you said I Love You?  It is usually a pretty big deal the first time you tell a significant other that you are in love.  I Love You are three tiny words that hold some significant weight.  They can change a life.

We are here today to encourage you to say I Love You more often.  Sometimes it is so easy to focus on the negative and forget about the love that is surrounding you.  Instead of arguing over something small this week, we would love for you to take the high road and tell your significant other that you love them.  Forget about the insignificant small things in life and focus on the big.

Say I Love You!

AMAZING Life Manifesto: Surround Yourself by Incredible People

Amazing Life Manifesto, Dreaming  //  24th September 2012

We received this advice a long time ago from one of our mentors and it is advice that we hold close to our hearts always.  Surround yourself by incredible people.

Jim Rohn said that, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”  Think about that.  Think about the 5 people that surround you the most and consider whether or not you want to be like them.  When we first did this exercise and thought this through a few years ago, we realized that the 5 people we were spending the most time with was not necessarily our family and friends… but it was our co-workers.

When you think about it, sometimes you spend more time with your co-workers than you do your immediate families.  That is CRAZY!  Sometimes it is not an easy answer, but truth be told… this is something you can do something about.

Think about the people that surround you and then think about the people that you wish made up those five people.  If those two lists are not the same, take action to make it the same.

There are people in your lives that will build you up and do anything to assure your happiness.  There are people in your lives that bring you smiles and help you relieve stress.  There are people in your lives that are doing amazing things and are having positive impact on the world around them.  If you ask us… those are the incredible people that you should surround yourself by.

Take some time this week to consider who those five people are in your life.  If they are not people that you want influencing your life… make change.

It could be as easy as making a phone call and/or scheduling a get together.  Now is the time.  Surround yourself by Incredible People. Have an AMAZING week!

AMAZING Life Manifesto: Pay it Forward

Amazing Life Manifesto, Dreaming  //  17th September 2012

The other day we were at Spoons enjoying some coffee and brunch after beautiful wedding the day before. We were chatting about the wedding when I overheard a lady at the bar ask for another mimosa and explain that she was coming off a full 2 week period of being full time momma without a break. She went on to explain that life as a single parent is not always the easiest, but she has a beautiful young daughter to go home to that makes her incredibly happy.

It was at that moment that I turned to Ryan and again thanked God for the amazing blessings in our lives.A little while later, the same lady asked for her check. The waitress replied that the young woman sitting across from her at the bar had already taken care of her bill. A look of shock and amazement immediately filled her face. She was in disbelief and immediately asked how she could reach the young lady to say thank you.We had just witnessed an amazing example of Paying It Forward. A complete stranger took the time to listen and do just a little something to make her day just a little bit better!

A simple gesture, such as paying for someone else’s meal, offering to watch a friend’s kids to give the parents a night out, or carrying a box for someone who looks like they could use some help can go such a long way. For the lady in Spoons who was on the receiving end, it restored her “faith in humanity.” One simple gesture can do so much!

This week, it is our hope that you find a way to Pay It Forward. Go out of your way to do something nice for someone. Let us know how you bring a smile to a stranger’s face this week! We can’t wait to hear.

The Making of Our Brand: Our Colors

Dreaming, Our Dreams  //  11th September 2012

We thought it would be fun to share with you a little bit of the behind the scenes from the Making of our new brand!  As you know, it was about 1 year in the making!  ;)  YES… that is a REALLY long time!  ;)  But as with anything that we do, we want it to be as perfect as it can be.  (For the record… Ryan is definitely Type A and I fall at about 95% Type A!  ;)  haha).

When it came time to choosing the colors to go along with our new brand, we struggled!  We had an idea of what we wanted, but could not seem to find the “perfect” shade of green or blue.  We looked around our house and pointed to objects that had a color we liked.  One of us would love it and the other one would not love it as much!  ;)  This went on for days… if not weeks.  We would be walking around the neighborhood, in the middle of a conversation about something completely different and one of us would point to a door or a sign or a trash can ;) and scream out, “wait, what about that color?”  If we semi-agreed, we would take a picture with our phones and come back to it later… always finding a reason why it was not perfect.

It came time that we had to make a decision.  Emily had finalized our logo design and the colors were the only thing that was holding us up from starting the next phase of our rebrand.  I was frustrated… literally on the verge of tears… and Ryan suggested we drop everything and take a day to go shopping.  Not necessarily to buy anything- but to surround ourselves by the brands we love in hopes to gain some inspiration!  So, we did just that!  We took a day trip to Leesburg, VA to check out the outlets: Pottery Barn, Kate Spade, Williams-Sonoma, Restoration Hardware, Le Creuset, JCrew, etc.  We walked around the stores with the sole mission of finding colors that spoke to our hearts!  We held up kitchen utensils, potholders, shirts, jewelry, dresses… you name it, we explored it!  ;)  Still not finding exactly what we were looking for.

Until we walked by Kate Spade.  From the window I caught a glimpse of a green handbag that made me scream with excitement!  ;)  I pointed at it… screamed a little ;)… and then looked at Ryan and saw in his eyes that we had some hope.  This could be the one!  ;)  It very well could have been cuteness of the handbag that made me scream… but actually it was the color green.  It was crisp and bold… just like we were looking for.

As we wandered around the store with huge smiles on our faces and a bit of excitement knowing what we had just accomplished… Ryan held up a blue wallet from the back of the store that literally made me scream just like the green one!  ;)  Ahhh… I was always a fan of Kate Spade, but that day I fell in love with excitement!  ;)  In one store we found exactly what we had been in search of for weeks!  The perfect shade of green and blue to accompany the yellow, crisp white, and two shades of gray we had already decided on!

Mission accomplished!  ;)  And to celebrate, we purchased the blue wallet so we could always remember our color-searching adventures in style!  ;)

Enjoy a few of our favorite photos from our phones below.