Coach Summit 2015 Recap

Wow.

I'm trying really hard to get back in my blogging groove and normal routine, it feels like all I can manage is trip re-cap after trip re-cap!

(I've been microblogging my day to day life on Instagram + Facebook...let's be friends?)

Does anyone else feel like this summer is going by in a whirlwind?

I guess that's usually the way it goes. Long days and nights, travel, a busy schedule that floats by at a hectic yet relaxed pace, one day and week at a time, hopping from weekend to weekend and trip to trip until your routine and schedule are completely blown to bits and all you can do is pour another margarita, take a deep breath, and enjoy the ride.

I've been marinating on this blog post since I came home from my trip to Nashville on Sunday night, struggling to put my heart into words. If I know I have to get something big off my chest, I feel anxious and restless and distracted until I sit myself down and do the work. So I'm sitting down right now on my front porch and writing until my head and heart are at peace again. I have SO much to share.

Literally my view right now. 

I feel blown open, breathless, like the last piece of the puzzle I've been working on all year has clicked into place.

It's no secret that I've been working HARD to overcome a ton of inner resistance, perfectionism, fear, and self doubt this year to learn how to trust myself and believe in my dreams. Inner work is hard. It's emotional. I'm not trying to change, but rather uncover who I really am underneath all the layers and labels I've pasted over my heart as I've struggled to find my place in the world.

How do I describe how it feels to finally know that I'm living my purpose? That I am HERE, I've arrived, I don't have to struggle-bus my way up the success mountain anymore? The hard work is not over, oh no it's just beginning, but the cloud of anxiety and fear is completely gone.

I trust myself. I see myself as a leader, and I am so incredibly proud of myself for listening to my gut almost a year and a half and signing up to be a Beachbody coach. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and had to do two months of Googling and research to convince myself this wasn't just a scam, but all the time there was this spark deep inside that was saying yes yes yes, go go go, fly fly fly despite my rational brain telling me this was a crazy stupid idea.

Good thing I've learned how to listen to my intuition because it led me to Nashville last week and my life will never be the same. The last ties holding me back have been chopped to pieces and I'm not letting fear or uncertainty keep me from sharing my story and building this business.

I drove down to Nashville from Chicago last Wednesday with my friend and roadtrip buddy Katie to attend our first Beachbody Coach Summit with seven of the coaches I personally mentor! I think it was the last major trip of my poor '03 Ford Focus that's seen me back and forth to Pennsylvania, Baltimore, and Oregon, ha.

Coach Summit is the annual Beachbody conference and convention, and it has grown over the past few years to 25,000 coaches. There are live workouts with the celebrity trainers, training workshops, keynote sessions, recognition celebrations, and parties. It's a chance for corporate to announce new products and tools, and most of all a time for coaches to bond with their teams! One of my favorite parts of coaching through Beachbody is that we're all independent small business owners, but we're part of a network of other coaches so we never feel alone.

Eight coaches representing my team Inspire Joy, which is now 100 coaches strong!

We've only been coaching anywhere from three to 17 months, a brand new baby team, and I don't think any of us knew what to expect. We arrived with wide eyes and open hearts, and a shared desire to re-ignite our spark for the work we do, sharing our stories and fitness journeys to inspire and encourage other women to get started and believe in themselves too.

We literally took over the entire city. All the workshops, sessions, and opening and closing celebrations were held in the Music City Center (biggest convention center I have EVER seen!), Bridgestone Arena, and the NFL football stadium!

We worked out, went out, learned, grew, bonded, survived off of Shakeology, snacks, and BBQ, and way less sleep than we needed.

One of the most unique experiences was shopping at the "Core," which was like a Beachbody mall full of the latest products and apparel that haven't been released to the public yet. I snagged a copy of Autumn's new 21 Day Fix cookbook, Fixate!

It was also really cool to see my name on the "Leadership Ladder" as a team leader. I still can't really believe I've grown my business into the top 500 out of over 350,000 coaches, thanks to the hard work of my team!

I feel like for the past year we've been doing our best, but we haven't had a focused drive. I know that Summit was the turning point for all of us and I'm so excited to see what we can do now that we have the training and motivation to push ourselves :) Ultimately I want myself and our team to be known as leaders in the network, and it's so exciting to watch our journeys unfold as individual coaches and as a team working together.

My main take-aways from my first Coach Summit

+ I need to hold myself accountable to my goals and dreams.

+ Growth takes TIME and success takes discipline. You have to be willing to do the work!

+ Leadership means putting your team first, and being the first one to step into the unknown. 

+ Recognition is critical. (Look out, challengers and coaches...)

+ You can't just flip a switch to be happy and successful. You have to intentionally program yourself to BELIEVE you can lead.

+ Don't let your fear or ego keep you from helping someone.

+ If you don't plan your time, someone else will design your life.

+ Having a vision means having a crystal clear sense of what the future looks like, with no sense of how long it will take.

I could probably write a separate blog post about every single one of those statements. Maybe I will!

Most of all, I'm realizing that I've never been happier in my entire life. I'm on the other side of fear, and now I get to guide women through the journey to discover their own version of this kind of happiness.

The happiness that isn't dependent on external circumstances, but the kind that comes when you accomplish things you never thought possible, when you follow your heart, take risks based on your intuition, find your voice, and believe in the inherent value of your dreams.

Yeah, I'm definitely high on life right now after this major rah-rah trip, but I'm also realizing that I have a choice how I feel and how I react to my experiences. I can choose to ride this wave and make it my everyday reality. I can choose to get focused, get to work, continue to put my story out there, continue to help other women, and end up creating a life of financial freedom and success I never even considered just one year ago when I was still working for a non-profit.

Last summer there was a desperate energy burning inside of me as I was hustling my brains out trying to get to the point where I could quit my job, and that energy is back but it feels different. It's not desperate or fearful anymore. It's clear and bright, because I know what I'm capable of and I'm not working for my own dreams anymore--I'm working for the dreams of my coaches and my challenge group members, and for YOU. I've already met my potential, I've danced and flirted with her, she has terrified me with her enormous power and beauty and wisdom.

Now I'm ready to rise, surrender, and let it flow. That's what coaching has given me. The opportunity to be myself.

I get to inspire joy.

xo Anna

p.s. Are you curious how you can get involved? You can join my health and fitness accountability group here, and learn more about my team Inspire Joy HERE! I'm in this for you babe, and I can't wait to hear your story.

Our Holland trip! (part one)

Oh hi, it's me! I'm aliiiiiive!

I didn't intend to take a summer break from blogging, especially after getting on such an awesome roll last month, but hey. Summer happens, life happens, motivation and focus goes out the window and the social calendar lights up.

Oh yeah, and Ben and I spent a couple weeks traveling through Holland, which was amazing!

It's taking me a little longer to bounce back from our first international trip together than I expected. Combine Europe Letdown with a plague I contracted on the way home, a 4th of July weekend, an intense (and successful!) apartment search, living with a teacher on summer vacation, and all motivation to do anything vaguely related to "work" will go out the window. I wanted to write this recap last week, but the more days that passed, the harder it seemed to pick up the pieces and START again already. But I'm back and I'm excited to get back into the blogging routine!

Our trip was amazing, and I'm definitely still processing it all. As a hyper-sensitive introvert, I'm learning that I usually prefer vacations that involve lots of laying around and doing nothing.

This trip was the OPPOSITE! We attended my aunt and uncle's 35th wedding anniversary party, caught up with old friends and relatives, went to a backyard BBQ and a pancake party, biked everywhere like locals, visited a flower auction warehouse, explored TEN different cities, and ate our weight in bread, Heineken, ice cream, and pastries. All in just eight full days! No wonder I'm still exhausted haha. 

Since I have so many pictures to share, I've decided to break up my Holland recap into a series of posts that I'll spread out over the next couple of months. This first one will be the most personal, and then I'll break down the major cities we visited into mini travel guides. I want to be able to do it all justice, share travel tips beyond Amsterdam, as well as process everything myself. Here we go!

I'm not sure if you know this, but I'm actually half Dutch and officially a dual US/Dutch citizen (as of last fall)!

My dad was born and raised on a bulb farm between two small towns named Voorhout and Sassenheim, in a bulb growing district next to the sea about 25 minutes south of Amsterdam. My grandparents' home was in a building that used to be the stables for the neighborhood medieval castle. Because, Europe.

Sidenote: The country is officially called the Netherlands and Holland is technically a province, but most people (...including me) use the names interchangeably to refer to the country as a whole.

These are some scenes from my grandparent's road and the surrounding neighborhood, and the old castle Teylingen! Lots of people with gardens set up roadside stands and sell their plants on the honor system.

The roads are extremely narrow and canals are everywhere. Lots of my family still lives in the area. The Netherlands is such a tiny country, roughly the size of Massachusetts, and so the population density is a lot greater than here in the US even in the "rural" areas. Most people seem to live close to their families and were shocked to hear that Ben and I are 3 hours away from both of our parents!

One of my favorite things about Holland is that it's such a social country. Neighbors will pop by for mid-morning coffee (an awesome cultural tradition) and everyone seems to know everyone else around town. My grandparents each came from large families with 10-12 children, so it seems like I'm distantly related to almost everyone in my dad's home town, through either blood or marriage.  

While I was growing up, my family would visit at least every other year to visit my grandparents, aunts, and uncles. I hadn't been back since high school though, and this was the first time traveling to Europe as an "adult" and the first time Ben had been to the Netherlands. It was weird and amazing. So many old memories, but seeing it all from a completely different perspective!

We stayed with my dad's cousin and his wife, we're close enough to call them Ome (Uncle) Maarten and Tante (Aunt) Coby. They live in a beautiful house with an enormous garden, since Ome Maarten is also involved with the flower industry. 

Here are some scenes from around their house and garden. Their neighbor across the canal has a menagerie of goats and roosters which kept us entertained (and woke us up in the morning!) We borrowed a couple of old bikes so we could get around like locals.

There are bike lanes and paths throughout the whole country, and it's the primary mode of transportation. We ended up biking to the nearby train station almost every day to visit a different city!

Here's the bike parking lot at the Sassenheim train station. And yes, there are McDonalds too :)

Summer is bulb harvesting season, so most of the fields looked like freshly plowed sand.

Flowers and bulbs : The Netherlands :: Soybean and corn : Illinois

Holland is an extremely neat and tidy country in general, which suits Ben's personality perfectly. Everything is organized, designed, and engineered to perfection, and most of the country lies below sea level so if you dig down just a few feet you'll hit water. No basements!

On our first full day, we biked to the nearby beach town, Noordwijk. It was the coolest day we had, so we didn't spend a lot of time on the beach but it was fun to hang out and explore the pavilions, restaurants, and shops.

The weather throughout Holland is breezy and mild, similar to the west coast of the US, but it does heat up in the summer. Since the country is at a high latitude, the days in summer are extremely long, and we only saw actual darkness a few nights! The sun rises before 5 am and doesn't set until 11 pm, and the light has this indescribable bright and clear quality that's reflected in the seaside paintings of the old Dutch masters. 

Things I ate: Lots of smoked salmon salads, lots of sandwiches and bread, tiny cups of strong coffee, lots of stroopwafels, cookies, and of course Heineken! I love the little baby glasses of beer that are served everywhere.

When I travel I usually do my best to stick to my normal routine and prioritize workouts and eating as healthy as possible, but while we were in Holland I pretty much went with the flow and indulged in all my favorite sweets and treats. It was also hard to stay hydrated since restaurants don't give you free water, and I didn't want to have to pee all the time.

I did sneak out for a morning run a few times and obviously did tons and tons of walking, but other than that I took a couple weeks off my workouts. I was surprised to find that even though my nutrition went out the window, because of all the muscle I've built over the past couple of years, my metabolism is super resilient! Even though eating like crap makes me feel like crap, I don't have to worry about gaining vacation weight.

That being said, next time I travel I'm definitely going to make more of an effort to control the sweet tooth because I didn't feel like myself! It really made me realize how I've completely shifted my entire lifestyle. Living healthy doesn't feel like effort or work anymore, it's just what I do. 

Stay tuned for my next Holland installment! I can't wait to share more stories and pictures of our adventures.

In the meantime, I'm packing my bags yet again to head down to Nashville this week for my first ever Beachbody Coach Summit! I can't wait to meet some of my coaches in real life for the first time and share the experience with them.

This has most definitely been the summer and YEAR of comfort zone busting! Thanks for following along :)

xo Anna

Have you ever been to Holland? What was your favorite part?