My husband and I are BIG dreamers and believe that anything is possible. When we first met, we were drawn to each other because we had a hunger for learning and we were passionate about business. He was running a very successful photography business while also working a full time job as an engineer (how he did it, I don’t know!), and I was beginning a career in real estate sales. On our first date he took me to the movies to watch “What The Bleep Do We Know!?”, which could have been a date killer for the average girl…but I found myself talking throughout the entire movie super excited about what I was learning. I was so fascinated by the power of our thoughts and mind, and loved it so much, I took my mom to watch it the very next day.

During the first year of our relationship, I joined him at the annual Wedding & Portrait Photographers International convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. He attended every year to learn from the best photographers in the world and become familiar with the latest business practices and products to enhance his business. From 7 am to 10 pm, our days were filled with classes and trade-show walkthroughs. On one of those evenings, he was supposed to attend a Master Class (which was limited to a very small group of people), and suggested I take his place so he could attend another one that had really peaked his interest. NEVER in a million years would I have imagined that by listening to this woman speak, I would be inspired to quit real estate to join him in his photography business. During that hour I learned the value of capturing a moment in time that would otherwise be forgotten and gone forever. Our memories fade but photographs help keep them alive. Photographers capture the lives of people in photographs that get passed on from generation to generation. Those photographs trigger conversations and recounting of stories. It was simply amazing! I finally realized why he was so passionate and I wanted to help.

Since then, we’ve been working together in his photography business, which he’s been doing successfully for over 24 years now. We’ve spent the last 10 years traveling the world together capturing the lives and memories of thousands of people. It’s been exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time. Nobody knows the countless hours we’ve spent working on and in our business (it’s actually kind of scary), or the amount of sleepless nights we faced to meet a deadline. There have been many times that I’ve thought to myself: “maybe I don’t have what it takes to run my own business”, or “maybe I should just go back to working a nine to five because that was so much easier”, or “I wish I were a bird so I could fly far far away”. Sound familiar to you?

A few years ago, one of our mentors asked us: “Why is it that no matter how many times babies fall, instead of giving up they continue to try walking over and over again?”. The answer to this question was mind blowing for me, yet so simple. He said: “It’s because everyone around them is walking…so it’s normal to walk.” Omg, this is so true! If we surround ourselves with like-minded people who are where we want to be, we will see it as normal to achieve their level of success. And no matter what obstacles we may face, we must get up, dust ourselves off and try again. Difficulties and failures are the necessary steps to get us to where we’re going and with each obstacle, there is a lesson to be learned.

We’ve learned that in life, one has to be willing to at times risk it all, travel the road less traveled and throw caution to the wind. And more often than not, we are crippled by self-imposed limitations that could be the very reason our dreams don’t come to fruition.

These realizations led us to change the way we were thinking about our life and our business. We started to ask ourselves: “What if we put our customers desires FIRST, by finding a way they could easily create our top selling product wedding albums and family photo albums, without having to pay us the fees we charge to do it for them?”. We started to shift our focus from “Why we couldn’t” to “What if?” and “Why not?” That is how our new business Fizara.com was born! We set out to give everyone the opportunity to preserve, display and share their life memories in beautiful photo albums. The amazing thing is that we were able to deliver the same high quality professional products, without the high sticker price.

It’s amazing how when we changed what we focused on, the things we saw changed. What we once thought was difficult to do, became so easy. We began to realize that the doors we thought were closed for us, had been open all along, simply waiting for us to step in. We learned that the only thing that was stopping us was our inability to believe possibilities are infinite. Not having all the resources we thought we needed was a blessing in disguise, because it forced us to focus our effort and become more efficient.

Here’s a quote I LOVE from Oprah: “Life whispers to you all the time…from the time you wake up in the morning and with every single experience…”. I’m so grateful my husband and I have started listening to the whispers which have become loud and clear!

I’ll leave you with a few things we’ve learned throughout our journey…

Dream Big.
Never Stop Learning.
Figure Out What You Want.
Have A Vision.
Take Action Everyday.
Work Smarter Not Harder.
Meditation Is A Beautiful Thing.
Focus Your Energy, It Creates Strength.
Visualization & Repetition Is Key.
Done Is Better Than Perfect.
Develop Good Habits.
When You Start Something… Finish It.
Face The Fear & Do It Anyway.
Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself
Learn To Forgive Yourself Because Tomorrow’s Another Day.
Focus On The Why. You’ll Figure Out The How.
Never Give Up.

Liz Henry
Co-founder
www.Fizara.com