We were lucky to catch up with Liz Dawn recently and have shared our conversation below.

Liz , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission at Celebrate Your Life events is deeply rooted in the belief that everyone deserves a safe and nurturing space to embark on their journey of personal growth and spiritual discovery. We are stewards to bring consciousness to the world. For me, this mission is not just a statement, but a guiding principle that has fueled my passion and dedication for the past 28 years.

Having some of the most-influential game changers on our stage such as Iyanla Vanzant, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Elizabeth Gilbert, among others, has been instrumental in shaping the vision and impact of our events. These luminaries bring a wealth of knowledge and insight, helping attendees to expand their perspectives and catalyze profound shifts in their lives.

The testimonials from our events speak volumes about the profound impact our mission has had on individuals from all walks of life. Whether it’s experiencing moments of clarity and healing, or feeling a sense of belonging and inspiration, or that wonderful sacred “aha” moment our events have touched the lives of countless people around the world.

For me, Celebrate Your Life is more than just a series of events—it’s a family, a sanctuary, and a catalyst for personal and collective transformation. It’s a safe space without judgement to have deep and meaningful conversations about life’s important questions and our spirituality. In a world where we are walking around at times just faking it, our Celebrate Your Life events allows the space for people to open their hearts and minds to new ways of thinking and being in the world – to soothe their emotional angst and most importantly to walk away with tools to live a more joyous, full filling and peaceful existence.

Witnessing the ripple effect into the lives of our attendees is incredibly rewarding and reaffirms the importance of our mission.

In essence, our mission is not just about organizing events; it’s about creating a movement—a movement towards self-discovery, empowerment, community, belonging, connection and collective awakening. And that, to me, is the most meaningful mission of all.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It was 1992, I was living in Los Angeles attempting to support myself as an actress. Running my own business was the farthest thing from my mind. Upon leaving Los Angeles I headed to Arizona to take a respite at my mom’s house with thoughts that I would return to resume my struggling acting career. But here I am the CEO of Mishka Productions and Celebrate Your Life events for 28 years running. With absolutely no business background or skills, my mom and I started the company with a phone line in her dining room on an old desk.

The beginning of Mishka Productions is not at all traditional. It happened quite by accident.

After being at my mom’s house, with no acting gigs on the horizon, I went to work in a spiritual bookstore. My mom had an affinity for all things spiritual and had me reading Ram Dass’ work by the time I was 16 years old. The bookstore was an easy fit for me. One day, the owner asked me if I would be interested in organizing an event with an author whose work she felt was going to be huge. I read the book overnight and came back the next day and said “YES!” The book? The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield that eventually broke publishing industry records in sales.

The event was a huge success with standing room only with over 1,600 attendees! I eventually left the bookstore, but what happened next was the surprise. I received a call from another spiritual teacher and author asking me to create an event for them. I told her that I really did not know what I was doing and had plans to move back to Los Angeles. She encouraged me, my mom offered to loan me some money and then it began.

An old desk, a phone line, in my mom’s dining room. It was 1995 and Mishka Productions was born – Mishka was our family dog.

One thing led to another, and my mom, Ariel Wolfe, closed her psychotherapy practice and the two of us started doing monthly events to sold out audiences. We then created our first Celebrate Your Life conference where we brought together over 25 renowned spiritual teachers for a wildly wonderful weekend event.

During this time, very few company’s were providing the space for people to gather and have meaningful life conversations and learn from some of the most inspiring teachers of our time. We were trailblazers in offering conferences and retreats with high profile personal development and spiritual teachers. People’s lives were being changed and this meant everything to me and my mom. Our events were like grown-up camp with hearts being opened, connections being made and most importantly people were learning new ways to be in the world that uplifted their lives.

In 2009, my mom, Ariel Wolfe transitioned into spirit. This was a defining moment for me personally and professionally. After millions of tears, I decided to continue on with our mission. My passion for bringing people from all over the world together for our conferences, retreats, women’s summits and now online events is still strong with me today as it was in the beginning. It makes my heart sing when I read our feedback forms and know we are helping people change their lives.

I’m proud of so many things:
1. I stuck with it through all the ups and downs
2. I had no business background or formal education but figured it out
3. Our attendees join us from all over the world and leave with enormous joy and hope in their hearts…it makes me happy cry!
4. I’m now 64, started when I was 36…eeekkk!!
5. I have a fabulous production team that loves the events as much as I do

We have thousands and thousands of feedback forms and testimonials from our attendees. I don’t think I could say it better than they could about the experience:

This event got me out of a motivational slump I was in. ! It’s insane how it all happened but the energy of the speakers, the attendees and YOUR ENERGY, Liz, is practically tangible! OMG, I was like a kid at Disneyland for the first time! I could not wait to get there every day and I was incredibly energized from the moment I got there! I thought my excitement, and the buzzing, would wane but that did not happen. It was such a powerful experience for me that I can’t wait to go back next year and bring as many people as I can! Thank you so much for offering this! – Juanita V.
CYL is a very special place to escape from the negativity of the world and to come together with like minded people. It’s like a reboot for me. I learn so much from the speakers and experience healing and growth to live a happier more fulfilling life. In this divine and sacred energy space you create we come together as one to learn, grow and heal. Your insightful speakers educate us to the importance of what we think and speak and emphasize the importance to be in a positive vibrational energy. This is the miracle of CYL in my mind. – Leslie N.

I learned there is a large group of people who vibrate on the same level as I do and this community is so open and loving. And there were many awe inspiring moments I will remember always. My friends marveled at my level of joy and openness during this event. I am a very level person but couple the excitement of attending with the energy and love present my consciousness expanded and my heart opened. Changes that remain with me.
– Jeanie R.
Literally…my whole life has changed! My heart is HUGE AND OPEN, my soul is new and renewed! I have learned so very much–that my past is now gone–and I’m starting all new! I AM CHANGED FOR THE BEST I CAN BE! 🙃 My world has been tipped upside down and back in the most wonderful spiritual way! THANK YOU! – DebraAnn B
The event exceeded my expectations. As someone who has created and participated in more events than I can count – CYL was well planned, the speakers were exceptional, food, location was top to bottom fantastic and well worth the investment. I highly recommend…. Melissa Perdue

I did not know what this event was. I thought I was going to go listen to professionals speak – more like a university setting. I didn’t even know exactly why I was going. Every single day – several times a day – it was revealed to me. In such obvious ways, there was no denying the power of the divine and what my purpose in attending was. Every single speaker, break out and human I encountered opened my eyes to the beauty in people and gave me so much of what I needed in my life right now, and I didn’t even know I was missing. I didn’t want to come home. I close my eyes and bring myself back to that weekend often. I want to come again and I want everyone I love to experience this. Thank you for finding me :) – Tena Doss

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’ve had two major challenges throughout my business.

1. In 2009, I lost my business partner, my mom, Ariel Wolfe, two days before I had to leave for a large Celebrate Your Life conference in Chicago. She passed on a Monday and Wednesday, I had to be on a plane, to be on stage and be the host of the conference. We had over 1,800 people attending. My mom was my hero, my champion, my best friend, my business partner all in one amazing human. I could hear her telling me to get on the plane. I did and it was an amazing conference.

I was totally unprepared for what came next. No matter how much you understand that love never dies and our loved ones are always with us, life felt extremely surreal. My grief would overtake me and I would sit paralyzed in my office. To add another layer, I was in the middle of planning my wedding. My beautiful partner Jeff, lost his father 5 weeks after we lost my mom. We held each other up. Jeff is a Holistic Doctor and had to be present for his patients and me for my business. It took me almost two years to feel “normal” again but I did it…continuing and moving forward.

2. After 25 years of producing successful events, in 2020 we had our first really huge financial splat!

We decided to create our first ever Online Summit. With over 55 speakers being a part of the Summit we knew we had a great product – or so we thought. We launched it in January of 2020. It was launched as a free product and then we would move people into purchasing the product. I had a great team working on the Summit, however sales were extremely low and we lost quite a bit of money.

I picked myself up and kept moving forward, however was completely shocked at what happened next!

The pandemic. Not great for a live event production company! We had over 600 attendees already purchased tickets for a live event with Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell. We could not move forward as everything shut down. We gave our attendees the choice of doing the event online. Sadly, we ended up having to refund over $300,000. All our other plans for the year were cancelled and our contracts refunded.

I thought that this was it. However, I kept at it, kept moving forward, coming up with new ideas, keeping our community together. I had no idea where I get so much tenacity from, but that is the word for being a business owner. You must love what you do and be tenacious as hell….because when shit hits the fan, you have to pull yourself back up again.

We’re still pulling ourselves out of the pandemic energy with people not quite as excited as being together in person, but it’s slowly happening.

AND…a beautiful silver lining. I was asked to teach an online Spiritual Entrepreneurs course with the famous Lisa Williams. Together, we’ve been teaching entrepreneurs how to market themselves, how to stay in the game, how to be a successful motivational leader and everything it takes to be in business.

I’m loving it!! Who knew!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Although there are now tons of personal development conferences, retreats and women’s summits out there, we’ve become so well-known for a few things.

We have a great reputation for overdelivering. I LOVE this about us! We not only bring together powerful life-changing teachers presenting keynotes and workshops, but the way in which we run our events is unparalleled.

1. Excellent customer service: we have a work/scholarship program for people who need financial assistance in attending our programs. We highly train them to be extremely welcoming, kind and offer white-glove service to everyone who walks through our doors. We constantly receive feedback about people who were nervous to attend but felt completely at ease when they were so joyfully welcomed.

2. The “fun” factor: We typically include a dance party or dance breaks, or time to connect with other attendees during the events. AND we include meals in our ticket price to make sure people don’t have to hassle and find a place to eat during the breaks. I’m a crazy foodie and drive the chef’s crazy to include gluten free and vegan options…. and the food must be great!

3. The Soul Tribe connections: one of my favorite all-time feedback forms was a woman who shared that 50% of the great experience was the speakers, but the other 50% was the amazing connections and lifelong friends she made.

4. We pick great locations for creative retreats: although we create large conferences, we also curate smaller more intimate retreats. One of our most popular places is our Celebrate Your Life Skamania Retreat taking place at Skamania Lodge overlooking the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington side of the river. It’s grown up spiritual luxury camp!! We have intensive workshops with high profile speakers and also adventure activities, such as zip lining, river boat cruise, hiking, equine healing experience, Aerial park obstacle course, kayaking, great meals, dance party etc….

Contact Info:

• Website: www.celebrateyourlife.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celebrateyourlifeevents/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/celebrateyourlifeevents
• Other: Call us! We love chatting: 480-970-8543