We’re all born with a set of gifts that set us apart from others. These gifts can be anything from being born a natural athlete, to having a photographic memory, or being very intelligent. These differentiate us and, if nurtured, we can be utilized as the building block for a successful life. Our gifts may help us do well in school, sports, or find a career where these gifts are given the air they need to shine through.

The one gift that we’re all born with is that of choice. Each of us decides, as an individual, what choices we will make. We have influencers and life experiences that may weigh in on those choices but we’re still given the power to make the final decision.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, discusses the difference between gifts and choices during a commencement speech at Princeton University.  During this speech he suggests, as highlighted by Princeton in the description on their YouTube channel, that “one’s character is reflected not in the gifts one is endowed with at birth but rather by the choices one makes over the course of a lifetime.”

You may be quick to jump and say that it is our experiences that make us who we are. I would agree with you. But, it isn’t just the experience that makes us who we are, it is the choices that we made as a result of those experiences that make us who we are and put us into our next situations.

Watch Jeff Bezos’ speech and see what your thoughts are about the difference between gifts and choices.

If you would like a full transcript of the speech, you can grab it from Princeton’s website.

What say you?  Do you think it is the gifts you were born with or the choices you’ve made that define who you are?

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It’s already a couple weeks into the 2nd half of the year. Can you believe it? The first half of the year blew by so fast. Some days felt like they would never end while other entire weeks flew by before coffee could even be poured. It seems that just a few days ago we were all sitting around making our New Year’s resolutions and setting our goals for the upcoming year.

Earlier today I spent a little while going through the goals I set at the beginning of the year. Overall, I’m pretty happy with where I am with my goals for this year. There were a couple setbacks due to being busy at both New Marketing Labs and Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse. However, I was able to check off some and I made action plans on how to attack a few more to get a couple small victories over the next several weeks. I also scheduled myself a reminder to check in and recalibrate again at the end of 3rd quarter.

Now that we’re fast approaching Fall, have you checked in on those goals that you set? How are you doing with them? Are there any that you can check off? Any that you need to recalibrate?

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Photo Credit: angietorres

I have a simple question for you: What drives you?

That’s not a new question, right?  You hear it asked often but have you ever taken time to actually analyze where your drive comes from and why?  Sure, you may be doing the advanced work, but there are always underlying factors that drive us.  It could be achieving success, not wanting to disappoint our family, competitiveness, a need to provide for someone else, or a number of other factors.  You may jump in now and say that it’s a combination of all of those factors.  That’s ok, as long as you have taken the time to truly understand if those are the factors that drive you.

For me, my drive comes from a few different areas however the main source is the need to ensure that I never disappoint my parents.  When I was 17 both of my parents passed away 5 months from one another.  My dad passed away from cancer in October 1999 and my mom passed away from a Lupus-induced heart attack in March 2000.  While the passing of my dad was a shock, we had been dealing with my mother’s illness for most of my life.  It wasn’t a terminal diagnosis but she had an extreme and aggressive form of Lupus that had beaten her up over several years.  My mom had always told me that no matter what happened in life, she would always look over my shoulder.  After my mom passed away I got a tattoo of a blue rose (her favorite flower) with angel wings and her death date on my upper back/shoulder area to ensure that she would always be looking over my shoulder.

Having both of my parents pass away before graduating high school instilled a great fear of disappointing them and it caused me to make a pact with myself that I would never stop.  Never stop what, you might ask?  Never stop anything that I put my mind to no matter how far out of reach it may appear.  Never stop persuing my goals.  Never stop until I could provide the life for my future family that my parents never could (read: I grew up very poor, on food stamps and supplemental help).

Couple this pact that I made along with an unnatural level of competitiveness and being a perfectionist, you’ll start to get a glimpse into what drives me.  It’s not as simple as wanting to be the best or being rich.  A perfect storm of life experiences collided at a young age for me that forced me to take a different perspective on the world in front of me and how I’m going to conquer it.

So, I return to the question I asked at the start of this post: What drives you?

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Photo Credit: Team Dalog

At about this point during the New Year’s holiday many are relaxing with their friends and family, recovering from hangovers after a night of partying, making resolutions and setting goals that will guide them, hopefully, for the rest of the year.  While I’m not hanging out with family or friends and therefore not having to recover from a hangover, I am focused, immediately, on a single goal.  That goal is to make January 2nd the best day possible for my beautiful wife, Laura.

This time last year I was busy typing away a similar post where I explain why this is such a hard goal to accomplish:

Every year Laura hates her birthday because it falls on the day AFTER one of the biggest party days of the year.  That sucks.  She turned 21 the day AFTER New Years.  Our friends are always still hung over and/or tired the day after. No one ever wants to do anything and it usually ends up making her sad.

This year saw a lot of change for us and tons of memorable experiences.  At the end of January we relocated to Boston so that I could launch New Marketing Labs along with Chris Brogan and Colin Browning.  This was hard on Laura because it meant that she had to move the farthest away she has ever been from family and friends.  She had to find a new job and get settled in a big city.  While she was trying to get settled in Boston, she was also right in the middle of planning our wedding which required weekend field trips all over the place including many visits to New York and Connecticut.  Either one of those events would be stressful enough to make someone lose their mind.

Usually through change like that, you would have your significant other to help you get through it.  But, unfortunately, Laura spent a lot of that time, and throughout the rest of 2009, having to deal with all of this by herself.  Sure, I was there for her but 2009 saw a sharp spike in my travel which caused me to be away from her a lot.  In previous years I’ve only had to travel a few times throughout the year, even though during those times they were generally long trips to the Philippines.  This year, though, had me traveling a few times per month adding up to around 50 times for the year.  When I was home, I was extremely focused on making New Marketing Labs and my steakhouse, Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse, successes.  In a forever mode of playing catch up, we didn’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of quality time together.  Don’t get me wrong, we have many lifelong memories from 2009 like sailing around the British Virgin Islands, honeymooning in St. Maarten, celebrating the 4th of July in Boston, and going to both Red Sox and Celtics games.

All in all, 2009 was a year of a lot of adjustments for us, most of them amazing changes.  For those changes that weren’t so much fun, I’m forever indebted to Laura.

I am so fortunate to be married to such a wonderful person.  She is incredibly beautiful, smart, loving, understanding and everything I ever dreamed of.  Every day I think I’m going to wake up from that dream.  That is why, last year I asked YOU for a favor:

My goal today is to get as many people as possible to wish her a Happy Birthday in the comments below.  Do you think we think we can get 25 people to wish her Happy Birthday? 50? 100 or more?

Since I had published last year’s post right at midnight, by the time I wished her Happy Birthday, she had about 25 people joining me.  In total, there were 167 comments left last year and she was floored by the response.

So, I want to run this experiment again this year but I want to add a twist to it.  Not only do I want to see if we can beat the 167 wonderful birthday wishes that Laura received last year, I want to see if we can do a little good on her behalf as well.  One of Laura’s favorite charities is the Jimmy Fund.  The Jimmy Fund supports “the fight against cancer in children and adults at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, helping to raise the chances of survival for cancer patients around the world.”

Do you think we could raise $1,000 to help the Jimmy Fund?  I think we can.  In fact, I think we can raise more than that but let’s shoot for $1,000.

If you could spare the cost of a coffee or two for Laura’s birthday to help these children, I would be extremely grateful and I know Laura will be too.

Thanks for all that you do…

This was originally posted on workshifting.com (a client project) but thought these tips could be useful to you over here as well.

You can always feel it coming.  You sit in front of your computer and stare at it blankly.  Watching Top Gun for the 15th time somehow makes sense.  Polishing your silverware sounds fun.  You even shut down IM, Facebook and Twitter.  What’s going on?  You, my friend, have hit the wall.  You have hit a wall where you are totally unproductive.  So, what do you do?  Do you accept your fate and take some time off?  Or do you decide to fight through it and see if you can get back onto the fast track of productivity?

Sometimes it can be that your morning just got started off on the wrong foot.  That’s easy to correct.  At the far extreme, it can mean that you’ve hit burnout.  Just a bit of advice: try to avoid the burnout side of the spectrum.  Other times, it’s that you fall in between those two ends and just have an all around unproductive day.  You can’t exactly put your finger on why but all you know is that you’re just being unproductive.  Suddenly it’s night time and you can’t really account for what really got done during the previous 12 hours.

Let’s face it.  As much as some of us don’t want to admit it, we all need to take a break occasionally.  If your family doesn’t force you to, eventually your body and/or mind will.  It’s natural especially if you keep laser focus and pride yourself on the lack of sleep you get.  Sometimes you have to just accept your fate and enjoy a day off of the grid and away from the normal grind.  But, other times you have to have a few sure-fire ways to give your day that shock needed to get back on track.  Here are the 9 ways that I help get my day back from careening out of control:

1. Turn on or switch up the music. Music is a major part of my life.  It always has been.  So, I have to have music on whenever I want to get a lot done.  Sometimes though, just turning on music isn’t enough.  That’s when I have to smash the emergency glass and pull of the musical first-aid kit.  This entails precisely of my Bose ear-in headphones, Pandora ONE and/or iTunes.  The music has to be something with a great beat and hard hitting bass.  For me, Jay-Z is usually my go-to artist of choice.

2. Try for a couple small wins. Try to accomplish some of the smaller, easier tasks on your list.  Maybe that’s paying a bill or two.  Send out that rebate.  Make those 3 phone calls you’ve been meaning to make.  I find that being able to cross a few of those off the list will usually be the injection of productivity needed to switch focus to the bigger projects.

3. Break the big projects down to small tasks. In my opinion, this is what you should be doing all the time.  But, we all forget and instead add “Take on the world” to our task list.  It’s no wonder that it keeps getting pushed off.  We find it to be daunting so we skip past it and move on to a bunch of smaller wins.  Instead of pushing it down the list, use your GTD ninja skills and break it into all of the smaller tasks needed to make the big win.  If you’ve forgotten about GTD, you can give yourself a refresher by watching David Allen present at Google.  I’ll sometimes make these tasks as micro as “Photocopy contract”, “Email contract”, “Send internal status update on contract”.  Again, it’s those small wins that will help you get back on track.

4. Switch locations. Sometimes it’s not you but your environment that’s making you unproductive.  Try workshifting from a different location.  If it’s a nice day, grab your laptop and go outside.  Head to a coffee shop or a restaurant.  Find those go-to locations for yourself and head straight there.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.

5. Drop the internet and put your hands up. Even if you don’t think it is, the internet can suck up time.  Those little minute distractions of TweetDeck‘s little black status box popping up or your email yelling at you that you have 10 unanswered emails can really prevent you from focusing.  So, when you really need to crack the whip, start by shutting down EVERYTHING that can interrupt you.  Yes, that means, email, IM, Facebook, Twitter, cell phone, anything and everything.   I like to switch up locations and go somewhere that I know I won’t have internet.  It helps me to focus and allows me to be creative.

6. Get up and stretch. I find that stretching revitalizes me.  It helps to unkink the muscles that have just sat there for hours on end.  A few cracks here, a few stretches there and I feel like I can conquer the world again.  If this doesn’t work, try going for a workout or take a quick shower. These little refreshers will help to make you feel better and gives you a few minutes to clear your mind before diving back in.

7. Take on something else. If it’s work-related tasks that you’re not able to crush, try knocking off something else.  I recently had an entire weekend where anything and everything work-related seemed like a foreign language to me.  Instead of just wasting the day away, I did a bunch of tasks around the house and ran a few errands.  This made me feel like I was accomplishing something and also helped me for the week to come.

8. Try calling a friend. Some of my best work is done when I can co-work with someone.  Invite a friend over, meet at a bookstore or try a co-working space and knock out some work together.  The tools that many of us are equipped with such as laptops, broadband cards, phones and the like allow us to be digital nomads.  Take advantage of it.

9. Power nap. Close everything up and take a 20 minute nap.  Power naps have been proven to increase productivity.  Some companies, like Google, even provide nap rooms for their employees.  So, close the laptop, grab your stuffed animal (er, um, I mean, pillow), set an alarm for 20-30 minutes and pass out.  If you can’t fall asleep, run head first into a brick wall.  It might knock you out for a little longer than 20 minutes but you’ll probably wake up feeling refreshed.  You might even hit your head hard enough to forget about some of your worries

These are just a few of a number of different tools I keep at-the-ready to help beat a feeling of being unproductive.  Even if I’m feeling totally productive, I will use some of these tips to help keep me pointed in the right direction.  Other times, just stop.  Take some time off and relax.  Your work isn’t going anywhere, that’s for sure.

Do you find these tips useful to you?  What do YOU do when you’re feeling unproductive?

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Photo by: u2slane

If you ever read this blog, follow me on Twitter or any of the other number of networks I’m on, you’ll quickly realize that I am fascinated by anything that’s behind-the-scenes.  For example, I love that with New Marketing Labs I get to hang out with really cool companies at their offices.  As I’ve said before, I try to look behind-the-scenes of other industries to learn from and apply to the way I do things with my businesses.  That’s why when I began reading about Reggie Love, the “body man” for President Obama, I became super interested.  A “body man” in politics is not a personal bodyguard, the Secret Service takes care of that.  Instead, a “body man”, according to Wikipedia, is:

a personal assistant to a politician or political candidate. A body man accompanies the politician or candidate virtually everywhere, often arranging lodging, transportation or meals, and providing companionship, snacks, a cellphone, and any other necessary assistance.

After learning about Reggie after watching a MSNBC special on an inside look at the working White House, I did some more research.  Reggie has become one of the most well-known body men in political history, due in part to his role as a basketball player with the championship Duke University team and his try-outs with two NFL teams.  There have been some very interesting articles on Reggie and surrounding him considering himself the “Chief of Stuff”.

When President Obama was on the campaign trail, ESPN caught up with, then, Senator Obama and Reggie to profile the Chief of Stuff.  It’s a fun video to watch, in my opinion, since it’s another look behind-the-scenes.

If you can’t view this video in your browser, you can also find it here…

Not only do I find motivation watching people like Reggie Love do whatever it takes, working 18-20 hours or more per day, when I first heard Reggie describe himself as the “Chief of Stuff” it resonated with me.  As General Manager at both New Marketing Labs and at my steakhouse, I tend to focus on operations, processes, and doing my best to ensure everything runs smoothly.  Along the way there are tons of “stuff” that needs to be dealt with on a daily basis.

Also, there a lot of things that I help Chris Brogan with throughout the course of the week.  Now, Chris never asked me to take on a role as his personal aide, though I am his right-hand man with a lot of things.  He does after all have a personal assistant in Kathryn Jennex.  However, I’m always concerned with ensuring that Chris is taken care of and that his other obligations outside of NML are taken care of.

So, why do I do this?  Because first, foremost and most importantly, Chris is a close friend of mine who I want to see continue to succeed.  He doesn’t like doing paperwork, organizing or worry about the detail stuff.  That’s not what he’s best at.  I, on the other hand, enjoy doing that and actually need to be organized to function properly.  So, as much as I can, I work with Chris to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about all that “stuff” that would slow him down.  I also work with our internal team to ensure that we’re aligned on processes, staying organized and always moving things like side projects along.  With how busy everything gets, it is very easy to let certain things go astray.  I try my best to ensure that doesn’t happen.

That role doesn’t stop with NML or Chris though.  I function in this role at the steakhouse and at home too.  Joe, my best friend and business partner at Caminito, is just like Chris in how he feels about “stuff”.  Joe is best at being our Executive Chef, not at organizing, planning, logistics (except as it relates directly to the functioning of service).  At home, I naturally fall into this role because of how much I do it by day.  I handle the bills, the scheduling of maintenance, logistics, and anything else that will help Laura and I out.  That’s not to say that Laura doesn’t do a ton of “stuff” that keeps us functioning.  Things like laundry, dirty dishes and tons more seem to always escape me.  She keeps me in line with that stuff.

I guess that makes me a “Chief of Stuff” kinda too, huh?  I’m okay with that and actually enjoy it.  So, my official title may be “General Manager” but I thing “Chief of Stuff” is a little more fun

What are you the Chief of?  How do you handle all of the “stuff” that needs to be taken care of on a daily, weekly or monthly basis?

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]]> http://justinrlevy.com/2009/07/12/being-the-chief-of-stuff/feed/ 11 http://justinrlevy.com/2009/07/05/boston-4th-of-july-fireworks/ http://justinrlevy.com/2009/07/05/boston-4th-of-july-fireworks/#comments Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:56:22 +0000 Justin Levy http://justinrlevy.com/?p=1352

There are many reasons why when I was growing up I always wanted to move to Boston.  I’ve always loved Boston and used to come to the city often on class trips, to explore, for sporting events, the Tall Ships or any other reason I could find.  Back in January I got that opportunity to move to Boston when we opened the doors to New Marketing Labs.  One of the things I had always wanted to do but never got the chance was to go to the 4th of July celebration.  Well, a few things aligned right in our schedules and last night Laura and I ventured down to the waterfront to watch the 4th of July spectacular.  It was simply amazing.

Approximately 500,000 people gathered on both sides of the river to celebrate America’s birthday with live music, food, drinks and ending, of course, with a HUGE fireworks celebration.  I have watched the Boston fireworks on TV for many years but nothing compared to seeing them in person.  Of course I shot a short video of different sections of the celebration including the grand finale.

I hope you enjoy the fireworks as much as I did….

[viddler id=7e69d25b&w=437&h=370]

What did you do last night to celebrate?

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One of the things I get asked the most is whether or not I actually sleep.  Due to the amount I try to interact on various platforms, this blog and Prime Cuts as well as my responsibilities to New Marketing Labs, my steakhouse, and a host of other projects I’m involved in, the short answer is: no I don’t sleep.

Instead of looking at it in terms of getting enough sleep, I look at it in the same way that Diddy does: Sleep is forbidden.  Diddy is known for hustling and in turn, not getting enough sleep.  He is known for telling his team that “sleep is forbidden” and it has been a quote that resonated with me since first hearing it.  If you go to Diddy and tell him that you’re tired, you know what he tells you? “What rhymes with ‘tired’…’fired’?  Don’t believe me?  Check out this quick video:

You see, I’m not someone that actually requires that much sleep.  On an average day I’ll get 3-4 hours of sleep, usually heading to bed around 3a and getting up at 6a or so every day.

Some have wondered if this actually lowers my productivity.  I’ve studied my levels of productivity based on different sleeping patterns and length of sleep.  I am most productive at around 4 hours of sleep.  I start to tweak out a little under 3 hours (which occurs often) and feel groggy at anything greater than 5 hours.  This, of course, hasn’t been this way for my entire life.  When I was younger I loved to sleep as much as possible.  But, for the past 8-9 years I have maintained a sleep schedule of an average of 3-5 hours of sleep per night.

Why do I not sleep a lot? It’s because I have certain goals that I’m trying to accomplish.  In order to reach these goals I must stay focused and capitalize on all of the little wins that come along.

My mind races with finding ways to interact more with all of the great people I have the opportunity to meet.  I spend countless hours thinking of new projects, what’s next, and trying to chase my goals.  I don’t think of my life in terms of work and play, personal and professional, home and the office.  Everything blends together for me and that’s how I prefer it.  Therefore, I don’t get upset that I work 90-100 hours per week.  I’m having fun; I’m running hard towards my goals; and along the way, I’m trying to be as helpful and engaging as possible.

This might sound eerily familar especially if you follow Chris Brogan.  That’s because it is.  That’s not by mistake either.  Over at New Marketing Labs we have some big goals in front of us and we’re putting everything we have into our company.  That means that Chris and I regularly are discussing clients, new ideas, how to make the Inbound Marketing Summit or Inbound Marketing Bootcamps better, or a number of other things in the middle of the night.  Even this morning, on a holiday weekend, while Chris is taking his first vacation in years, we were discussing some new ideas over DM on Twitter.  It even brought about this tweet from me that garnered a few chuckles:

Some of my friends and colleagues worry that I’m going to burn out.  Don’t worry, I won’t.  I can’t.  Not until my goals are reached.  When I hit those goals, I’ll set new ones and continue this cycle.  Because of that, sleep is forbidden.

I hope that you continue to join me on this adventure…

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I have always been someone who enjoyed being fit whether it be working out, playing sports or just being active getting out and about.  But, unfortunately, over the past couple years I have been on again off again with working out.  I’ll do really well for a few months and then I let something like travel, vacation, busy work week or another excuse throw me off.  I’ve never stopped being fit such as choosing stairs instead of elevators or trying to eat decently healthy but I haven’t committed to it in the way that I have in the past.

You see, I tend to have an obsessive and competitive personality.  What this equals is that I always have to be the best at what I do and I obsess over ways to become the best.  Well, with not working out on a regular basis, it has driven me crazy because I know the things that I can do to immediately improve.  It drives me crazy that others are in better shape than I am.  I’ve spent a lot of time throughout my life studying nutrition, nutritional supplements, and working out.  For a few years I was a manager at GNC in college where I would devour 10-15 magazines per month and read every book that was sent to us.

As I make the commitment to get back into shape, I wanted to share with you some of my top tips to getting back in shape.

Top 10 Tips for Getting in Shape

1. Buy some new gear – Go to your local athletic store and buy a new outfit including proper cross-training or running sneakers.  Not only will it make you feel better and put you into the mood to workout, it’ll help you be more comfortable and proper footwear will help to protect against injuries.
2. Create a new playlist – Put together a fast-paced playlist that you’ll use when you go to the gym with your iPod or other MP3 player.  I tend to load hard-hitting rock or alternative songs for when I’m lifting weights.  If I’m doing cardio, I have a playlist of uptempo songs usually pop, hip-hop or club music.  You’ll find you’re workouts will be a lot better if you’re not already doing this.  Who really wants to listen to themselves gasp for breath while working out anyways?
3. Always be a student – Go out and buy the rack of magazines, pick up a couple new books and find some websites that you enjoy reading.  Become a student of being healthy.  Not only will you learn tons about how to eat properly and put together workout plans based on your goals, it will also help to keep you motivated.  When I’m really into working out I will typically read 4-5 magazines and 1-2 books per month.  My two favorite magazines are: Men’s Health and GQ but there are tons more.
4. Set small obtainable goals – One of the things I think discourages people the fastest when they’re trying to get back in shape is setting a goal that seems impossible such as losing 50lbs or dropping 8 pants sizes.  Set small obtainable goals and write them down.  Maybe if would be a big win if you made it to the gym 5 days this week, lost 3lbs, or didn’t eat fried food for 2 weeks.  These are very obtainable and measurable goals.  A bunch small wins will turn into obtaining that larger goal.
5. Track your progress – You should record everything including your goals, your meals, and every workout along with a picture of yourself once per month.  This will help you to track your progress and see those small wins as well as helping you to set new goals.  What I also find this does, for me at least, is that I will not cheat on a meal or I’ll make sure I get that workout in that I don’t feel like doing because I don’t want to have to write the fried food or missed workout into my journal (unless it’s a cheat day of course!).  It keeps you accountable.  You could even make this journal public to keep you even more accountable.
6. Reward yourself regularly – I find that people fall off track because they go too far too quick to the other spectrum.  You’ve spent a long time not eating healthy and/or not working out regularly.  Going to the other extreme and droppin everything you were doing previously, may actually cause you to fall off.  Start by cutting back and also don’t be afraid to reward yourself regularly.  I allow myself to have small rewards.  For example, if you eat a lot of chocolate, try cutting it back and just have a small square each night after dinner.  You’ll still be cutting back a lot of calories, fat and sugar and at the same time you’ll be satisfying your craving.
7. Workout with a friend – While I don’t always have this luxury, I do find that I stick to my schedule a lot more when I’m able to workout with a friend.  When Laura and I first moved to Boston she was transitioning between jobs so that meant she was home every night.  Every night we would go to the gym as soon as I got home and then have dinner together.  It kept us accountable to each other and made it fun!
8. Just get started – One of the most important things with getting back into shape is to just get started.  Is it a sunny day out right now as you read this?  Lace up your sneakers and take a walk around your neighborhood.  Hop in the pool and try to swim a couple laps.  Just do something active!
9. Have fun - Most importantly, have fun with it!  Don’t see getting in shape as another task.  Choose activities that you enjoy doing and can do often.  If you don’t like gyms or are intimidated by them, go for walks, or bike rides, go swimming, run hills, do a hike and enjoy the view.  Whatever it is, find something that you enjoy and keep doing it.  You’ll find that you’ll soon begin wanting to explore other activities.

What are some of your tips for getting back into shape?

In my next post I’ll cover some of my tips for eating healthy which can sometimes be the more difficult thing for people to accomplish on their path to getting in shape.

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Photo by: stacya

Anyone that has spent any amount of time around Laura or I over the past 14 months knows that we had been feverishly preparing for our wedding.  Being that we are both just a tiny bit crazy when it comes to detail and organization, we agonized over every single detail of the wedding to make sure that our special day, Saturday, June 6th, would be absolutely perfect.

Well, last Saturday, after hundreds of hours of planning, the big day finally arrived.  It was the best day of my life.  Laura looked absolutely breath-taking.  She was simply stunning.  Everyone else looked great too!  Every aspect of our wedding went perfectly and we loved every minute of it.  Though tired by the end of the night, we didn’t want it to end.

Following us along that day were our fabulous photographers, Erik and Victoria Souza (remember how great our engagement photos were!).  There were also tons of people taking pictures, videos, and tweeting (thanks @repcor@ellieeille @mathurrell @alexa @gregcangialosi @bostonmike and @nicksaber) going on.  As the next few days and weeks roll on I will be posting tons of pictures to my Facebook and Flickr accounts as we get more pictures from our photographers, friends and family.

Earlier today I got the word from Erik that the first batch of “teaser photos” were ready for us.  So, what was the first thing I thought to do?  Share them with all of you, of course

If you want to check out the rest of the photos, head over to my Flickr page….

A lot of people wanted to know what our wedding song was.  It was “Until the End of Time” by Justin Timberlake.  We chose this song because it is what I had playing in the background when I proposed to Laura on Friday, March 28th, 2008.  If you’ve never heard the song, you can check out the YouTube video here.

Also, I received A LOT of questions about whether I would tweet the wedding.  Well, if you didn’t check out #levywedding yet, head over there for some more pics and reactions from everyone.  Just as proof, here are two last photos for you

A very big thank you to everyone that was part of this very special day for both Laura and I.  I hope you enjoyed every minute of it whether you were able to attend or could only follow along….

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