fertile imagination

It's starts with a vision and if yours lacks any of these criterium then it will be HARD to stay up as a chronically exhausted mom or leader of any sort! It's also important that you articulate your vision in a way that generates goosebumps, inspired actions, or plants an audacious visual in the mind of someone else....THIS transaction of language is what will mobilize your network. It's WAY easier if your vision is true to you. It's impossible if you don't buy-into a vision....this stuff is hard to fake people....hence I love serving mom entrepreneurs. We are not out here pretending to love our businesses....there's more than meets the eyes behind every single mom LLC....way more!

Any who, so excited to bring to the world my Fertile Imagination in Action Group Coaching program! SO SO SO thrilled because now what I learned from you (my podcast guests, every boss I've ever had, my angels, clients, mom, Abuela) I'm teaching to my fellow moms in business. Let's talk if you want to learn more this program.  My sons have spring break soon and that is why I will be taking only 4 mom visionary moms this round....will one be you?

Schedule a 15-minute chat to learn more about the program: https://go.oncehub.com/ClientSessionMelissaLlarena

The Fertile Imagination in Action criteria for a vision that will lift you out of bed when you do not feel like it as a mom in business. You know my bestseller Fertile Imagination? Well, it's time to activate its key principles....this is 1/9th of what I'll be teaching....want to learn more?

Sign-up for a FREE 15-minute:

https://go.oncehub.com/ClientSessionMelissaLlarena

-How mind-blowing is your vision?
-Does your vision convey urgency?
-Would your vision help you bounce back up?
-Is your vision more powerful than your fears?
-Is your vision energizing?

 

Welcome to Episode  211. It's 2024. So now you've got to hit the ground running. You've got to go towards your ambitions and everything seems to be in sync. And I want you to feel energized. We all do. I am so on your side and I'm thrilled that you're here to celebrate 2024. So this conversation is with Meryl Cook and she is a creative person whom I admire. She's a writer, an author herself, and she does something called hooking. Now get your mind out of the gutter. It has to do with yarn and creating beautiful designs. What a wonderful woman and conversation that might be best enjoyed with a mom friend. That was a hint because we’ll get into some thoughts on making more mom friends and what to look for in them too. Ultimately, think about this episode as a helpful reminder for 2024. What if you had mom friends that were ahead of you? And what if you had a handful that also reminded you that you get to play too? That is what Meryl and I talked about in this conversation. This is the last chat in my series that involved my book launch of Fertile Imagination. It was maybe like one of my first IGTV lives with a mom who was ahead of me. Also an empty nester. And what I love about the conversation is that 2024, you may have not considered it, but what if it's the year that you make friends?

If you love parties then please do say hi on Instagram which was where this party took place: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

TRANSCRIPT

What if it's the year that you find a group of women who emboldened you and inspire you and give you the inspiration that you need to actually go after what is on your heart? On that note, I wanted to share a review from an empty nester who is also ahead of me in her motherhood journey. So Meryl Cook, as I mentioned before, is ahead of me in her motherhood journey.

All her quote-unquote kids are out of the house. And the same is true of this Amazon reviewer, Kathleen Ryan. So Kathleen Ryan is someone who worked at Ogilvy & Mather and has had an amazing career that I completely admire and Kathleen is a great-grandmother right now. This is what she says about fertile imagination, my debut book for moms who want to rediscover their imagination, especially this year in 2024.

This is your year, like legitimately if you choose it to be, she says, fertile imagination is a virtual powerhouse of real-life scenarios that will help any woman. Moms, especially navigate today's workplace. I wish I had been gifted this kind of access to smart women back in the seventies when I was raising my boys as a single mom.

I wanted to point that out because Kathy Ryan also shared with me the idea that now that we have access to technology, we can be always on 24/7. It's like an extra hurdle that working moms have to really overcome. How can you take back your time? How can you hold sacred time? And it's something that I hadn't thought about until Kathy Ryan actually told me over text.

And that's the value of having moms who are ahead of you. They have a really good appreciation for what they were able to accomplish, but they wish they had greater support. And I think it helps us in the modern time right now within any season of motherhood that you're in, to reconsider what's necessary and what's superfluous.

So I hope you enjoy the conversation with Meryl Cook. It had to do with the book launch for imagination and it's about celebrating, right? So January 2, if you got through the holidays unscathed, if you got through. Everything that needed to happen, like, why don't you celebrate? Why don't you do a spa day?

Why don't you throw yourself a dance party? Right. And that's what Meryl Cook and I talk about this idea that oftentimes as moms, we don't celebrate. So again, there are benefits to having moms that are ahead of you in your season of motherhood and 2024 might be the year of friends. It might be the year of friends.

It might be the year of Mom friends who are ahead of you. So I appreciate you both Kathleen Ryan for leaving your Amazon review and also Meryl Cook for reminding me that it is important to celebrate. And I suggest that you do the same too. Okay. Enjoy the conversation. Thank you. So how's your day been going? 

Ah, it's been going. I feel like I have, it's overwhelming with the support that I've gotten from people. And it's interesting because maybe for other people also like taking compliments feels weird and different. So when people tell me that they're proud of me for having this book out in the world, I feel so, it's like unusual.

You know, yes. Good for you. I really think it's just soak it up and enjoy it. It's, it's a fabulous way that you've launched and I'm so pleased that, that you called on so many different people to help you. And, and I mean, that's what being a mom is about, right? Is, it calling on your tribe and saying, can you help me?

I need to do this. Yeah. Yeah, it's wonderful, wonderful. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask you, Melissa, because I've just started my new podcast called Renegade Conversations, and I started out with a really great cast of people, but now I'm searching around for other people, and I wonder,  how did you get so many really really top-notch people on your podcast.

What, what was your, what was your magic that you did? Do you know what my magic is? It's it's being very authentic and sincere. You can actually, you will be surprised. Like for example, now, as you go on your own sort of audio journey or visual journey, cause I've seen some Instagram too, you will be surprised that.

Individuals whom you might feel are hard to reach are not as difficult to reach if you approach them from a place of sincerity. So if you want to have a deep conversation on your channel and you want to talk about something that is truthfully, On your heart, like it really matters to you. Then someone like Suzy Batiz, who was a founder of Poo~pourri, or David Meltzer an entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Like they're willing to have a conversation with you. And I think it's for a couple of reasons. Like, I honestly think, first of all, they must think to themselves, well, if this person has the guts to ask, there's gotta be something about her, that's a little different. And then the second side of it is.

These individuals are approached so often with people who have agendas. So you are refreshing if you truthfully want to have a deep conversation, but you're very refreshing. When I interviewed Susie Batiste, for example, Who's in my book, fertile imagination. I approached her from the position where I knew her background.

Like I knew that she had family members who had mental illnesses. And then my mom has a mental illness. And I also saw that she really cared about spirituality and the universe and all of that. And for me, it wasn't a leap really to approach her and say, Hey, I've been looking at you on this channel and that channel.

And I feel like we're vibing similarly. May I approach you? Yeah. No. So. That's the key. Sincerity. Cool. I've been doing that and that's been working for me so far. A few people are a bit hard to reach and hard to get past, their managers, for example, or, their media people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the funny thing.

That's the funny thing, Meryl. I actually don't ever approach, the managers or PR people. Like, that's a nice, that's a nice consideration and I'll respect it if it's a requirement, but I talk to them actually like individually.  And so I think that makes the difference because when I was putting together the book, there were so many approvals that I had to get.

And ultimately, some of the individuals that are in the book, you can literally reach out to them one on one and they'll get your approval or whatever. But for other individuals, you have to be more strategic. It's like who was the audio guy behind this person who I physically saw at the comedy club?

Like that's how I got James Altucher's approval. Like I had to really be like sleuth work, you know? And so you got somebody to give you an introduction then basically is how you did that.  No, I showed up to his comedy club is how I did that. Awesome. Good.  I've been doing some similar things.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun. Actually, I really enjoy it. So I was so excited to see you putting your opening your book video and all those kinds of things because I think that's I think that As women, as mothers, especially, we need to celebrate these, these milestones, right? We need to because they are a big deal.

And, I think often, what we do is rush from one hurdle to the next hurdle to the next hurdle. So we accomplish something and we don't take time to really have fun. And so today you're, you're doing your big launch and I hope tomorrow you're just going to celebrate and say, hey, what did I do?

And really, really take time to acknowledge the hard work that's gone into this launch. I mean, you've, you've been on this for months now, right? Even before, as the book was going to the printer, you were already planning your launch. So that, that's really. Really impressive. Thank you. I, it's funny because I, I was thinking about how a lot of typical book launches, like you go to a bookshop and you're signing stuff, selling the books.

And I thought to myself, I was like, honestly, for me as a mom, a slumber party where no one's invited, would be the best book launch party for me. It's like, can I just like sleep? Like, is that like on the table? And, and it's like, like, I get it. Like I get wanting to like to spend time with other people and make it a big party and celebration.

But I also get to be able to use my fertile imagination and think about how I want to truly celebrate. Like I want to celebrate online with women from around the world who have different viewpoints and I want to do it and I want to be home to then take my three little boys trick or treating.

Wondering about that because yes, you do have to go trick or treating tonight, and uh, but you're on the West Coast, right? So you have a bit of time Austin, okay the middle of the U.S. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. That's great. And so what's been your biggest surprise about today?  well  For me, I guess it's like, I thought, I thought that things would be a little bit more like real-time from a technology perspective, but apparently they're not, there's like a lot of lag in terms of the world of Amazon.

So that's more like, but it's, what do you call it? a rookie kind of thing. Right. I just bought one thing and I got another in terms. You know what it is too, in terms of seeing people reshare the stories that I put out there and like share with their community about me and the book, and then also like the reviews.

So honestly, for me, it's like the reaction of everybody. And, and I see it so visually, visually for me, it feels like people are like, like hugging me like, like virtually we are. That's so cool. Wonderful. Oh, wonderful. Do you have any new, stats yet? Or is Amazon still calculating everything that's where we get tricky.

That's right. Could you believe it? Like static, static. So how it's like as someone, like when you're in the thick of it and you're like in a launch or whatever, you always have obviously like two paths, either be like what deflated or forget it, but, but, but, and for me, I'm just like, I don't know what's happening on the logistics end and all of that, but I'm going to keep going.

When I was giving birth and I gave birth to the identical twins, like there was all this, like a SWAT team in the room looking at me, right? Like a miracle or something. And, and I'm giving birth and I'm like, ultimately everybody was telling me, Oh, push all this or that. And like, who was in charge? Me, it was just me.

And so it's like, okay, the same thing with a book. It's like, I have to keep up my energy. I have to keep up the faith. I have to keep this up because ultimately here's what I know for sure. Like you, you have a book, you have books, plural, like. You had them inside of you. You had books inside of you. And do you know how many people say that and don't do it?

So for me, like that in and of itself, it's an accomplishment. It's a huge accomplishment. It's really huge. And what will be really nice is five years from now when you find your book is still selling. People are still benefiting from it. That's a really big deal. And your book is the type of book that will be evergreen.

It's not something that's going to go out of style. It's the kind of advice that all mums need. Yeah, I think, I think you're going to be five years from now, we're going to be having this conversation saying,  Oh, I'm still selling on Amazon. And here's where I sell most of my books and it'll be awesome.

So my son was just on Keegan is one of my boys. He said, Hi Mom. I'm just about to leave for work.  How cute. He lives in Vancouver. He's a tattoo artist. So.  How cool is that?  That's what I love, Meryl. I love, I love being around moms who are at different stages of motherhood. I think it's so important.

Yeah. It's important to have intergenerational friends, especially among mothers. When I first moved to the Northwest Territories, my son was just on Keegan was three weeks old and the nurse at the nursing station said, the best thing you can do is to make fun. Make friends with a woman who has kids in school who has sort of been through the early kids stage and has some advice to give you and it was really good advice.

Yeah, I think it's important for sure, for sure. Yeah, nice, nice. So, is there anything else you'd like me to ask you? Is there anything else? I don't know how our times are, we have about four minutes left. No, I think right now, It's funny because you and I were talking about the title of the book. Yeah. I think you did a great job.

Thank you. I remember. So that's something that's kind of like the backstory, right? The amount of pressure that I felt to come up with like the world's best title was something that I couldn't even like. Put my finger on it like it's that it's like that last thing that matters the most and it's like, oh great but yeah, I remember when you and I were brainstorming and you were sharing your opinion and you like the fact that it had something about playful and it was like play playback no playbook and playful Yeah, right Yes.

Do you think that more than one meaning to and yeah, and that it's um,  yeah. And so that idea of playfulness, I'm just curious about your stage of motherhood. However, you define that for yourself. How have you remained?  I think I have not only remained playful, I've become more playful. My kids are all launched.

The youngest is 30 now and mostly doesn't live in our house. The occasional weekend he lives with us still. I would say that I take more time to be playful and to make sure, for example, that I work on my art every day, no matter what else I'm doing, I'm crazy, crazy busy. If I don't take time for my art or I don't take time to play.

I noticed that I started to make mistakes. I start to kind of fall apart. And when I make time for play, it regenerates me and gives me the enthusiasm and the energy to keep going forward. So. Yeah, so I'm more playful,  see, and that's something that I think as, as a mom who has three little boys who are nine, nine, and 12, it's like, I see them play and in the book, I even talk about how, like, my husband is like, he'll go straight for like the chess set.

Meanwhile, for me, if I see the chess set, I will pick up everything from the floor on the way to the chess set, and then I'll forget that I intended to play. It's like adding a to-do, right, in your list? I was actually writing about that this morning. I just published a blog on creativity and midlife and beyond and, and, and I was exactly like that.

I would, I would always do all my chores before I would do my creative process. What I discovered is, is that The chores are never done,  and they're never all done, so it was more important to really take the time to play and to do the creative process, and that would help me to get more done in the end, but I think as women, we're so conditioned to taking care of everything else and everyone else, and we think of our creative process as frivolous, or as something that's kind of stuff for the day.

A nice thing, but, but maybe we won't get to it. And, I think that for me, having had breast cancer, I realized that I really need to focus on myself. And, I think that young moms also need that, I wish that I hadn't waited until I had a big health scare to focus on myself and to make time to play because I think in general, I mean, my husband is, is a very.

He's a good father, he does a lot around the house, but he's, he doesn't, he doesn't think twice about lying back on the couch if he's tired. He'll get things done, but whereas I'm like 30 at night, then I'll sit down. And so I'm, I've really worked on that in the last eight years to, uh, to work on, okay, now's the time to do work, and now's the time to just let the dishes sit there or let, let something else sit there because it never will be done and, uh, yeah, we need to play as mothers.

Yeah.  No, I think so as well. And I think you reminded me. So one chapter in the book is exactly what you're saying. And it's basically this DJ  who is in her fifties DJ yo Mama Esther. And she had also felt like. She was focused on helping everyone be happy and she was losing sight of her own happiness.

And so she had her health scare and her daughter also had a health scare when she was a little girl, but ultimately like the message in the book, I have a chapter. Dedicated to this is that it's like your body doesn't know why you're neglecting it. Like neglect is neglect. And you've got to be really mindful as moms.

And I would say if there were a way to help us prioritize ourselves, I think, I think the art of playing might be the answer. Like our kids want to, they want to, I  mean, maybe not your son since they're adults, but Oh, I don't know. I think they still play. They have their hobbies, they have the things that they love to do and they prioritize them.

Some, someone is saying, uh, make time for what matters most. Your relationships, your tribe of people, that's the prize of life. Yeah. I think that that's true, but you have to include yourself in that tribe. So make time for what matters most, including me. Right? Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Cool. Thank you so much.

I wanted to tell people that the book is available today. The link in my bio, and I would be honored if anyone in your community, Meryl actually got the book and got enjoyment out of it and felt that sense of play. Excellent. Well, I'm, I'm sure that people will take a good look at it and I would highly recommend it.

So. Thank you so much. Have an awesome one. I appreciate you. Let us know, let us know how the stats go when they finally tell you what they are.  Thank you. Thank you again. Thank you, Melissa. Bye. Merrill is so amazing and a big shout out to my Canadians, honestly. The book is available to you as well. You could absolutely get it in Kindle format and you could go on Amazon. And purchase the book as well. If you have already purchased Fertile Imagination, I would invite you to write a two to three-sentence Amazon review today. Here's why there are about 3 million moms who are logging into Amazon every single day around the world. I surmise, that they are shopping. And right now they're getting recommendations in their shopping cart.

That could be things like lipsticks, or it could be things like sneakers, or it could be things like. Tie detergent. What if instead, Amazon noticed that Fertile Imagination was getting all these reviews and put it as a recommended product for them to imagine being recommended, being recommended that you go after your dreams?

Imagine if someone told you, you know what, there's this book out there for imagination that I think you will like to, that can actually take what's in your heart and bring it out live. To whatever market you so desire. That's what we want more of. Like, I would love to see shopping carts filled with a fertile imagination and then filled with whatever tools are necessary to execute whatever dream you have in your heart.

That's what I want to see more of in 2024. And I need your help in order to do that. The more reviews we get on Amazon.com, the more likely 3 million moms every single day will see Fertile Imagination, my debut book. Online is available to them and for them and that is so important every single day. That's 3 million missed opportunities. It is not yet really buzzing with Amazon reviews.

Thank you so much for choosing unimaginable wellness, and this is going to be the year of friends, the year of seeking friends who support you so that you don't feel lonely so that you don't feel overwhelmed and unable to ask for help. I want all of that for you for 2024.

Happy New Year. Thank you so much again for all of your support for shopping, and fertile imagination for activating the ideas for making sure that you're reawakening. Reawakening, playing with, and stretching your imagination for maximum impact. Thank you so much. 

​ 

Welcome to Episode 210. We're going to talk with Margot Bisnow, who wrote the book, Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams - 99 Stories from Families Who Did. What I love about this conversation is that there are so many moms behind us, and there are also moms ahead of us. This includes moms who have authored books too! Moms to young men as well. The available mom mentors are truly plenty and for that I’m grateful to have had so many book launch conversations like today’s. In this one, Margot Bisnow asked me what I personally learned about myself, about my family, and about writing. If you think you have a book in you and you really mean it then tune into our conversation as it will astound you in terms of what I learned and you could too in 2024!

If you love parties then please do say hi on Instagram which was where this party took place: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

TRANSCRIPT

When I wrote Fertile Imagination. So this is a snippet from the conversation on book launch day for Fertile Imagination. And I'm so appreciative of Margot Bisnow. I wanted to share an Amazon review that really hit close to home because I'm a mom of multiple. This was for the book Fertile Imagination, which you can purchase on Amazon.com.

Rose Elizabeth says this, as a mom of triplets, I know firsthand how easy it can be to lose yourself in motherhood. This book Fertile Imagination helped me reawaken my imagination and start to create the powerful impact I want to have on the world. It's a must-read for moms who need inspiration to live their lives for themselves, not just for their kids.

What I love about this review is that Rose Elizabeth, a mom of triplets, who also might have her own business, if I think this is the Rose that I know, took the time to go on Amazon.com and share two to three sentences on how the book really resonated in her own life. Amazon reviews are so important.

If you have ever, ever written a book, ever uploaded your files on Amazon and hit the publish button, then you know, but most of you don't. You might have never, ever understood the logistics behind what it takes to Have a book become number one in the motherhood category and number one in the women in business category on Amazon.com, both of which Fertile Imagination was able to do on book launch day. So I wanted to share that. I'm so grateful and enthusiastic.

So if you have already purchased the book Fertile Imagination, I invite you today to go ahead on Amazon.com and write your two to three sentences. If Amazon sees that this book keeps getting written reviews and notices that there's activity on this particular book, it will show it as a recommended product to moms.

And there are about 3 million moms. I would argue even more in December, especially today, December 26. They are shopping on Amazon, so could you imagine if a mom is going in there and is looking to purchase something like paper plates or something like, you know, I don't even know, a new battery for her cell phone, I'm making that up.

Imagine if, in her recommended product area, she sees fertile imagination. What if she decides that day to invest in herself? Buy a book that can help her figure out what she wants to do in the next chapter of her life, figure out how she can actually live out her dreams in a very practical step-by-step manner, whereby she gets to actually take back control of her dreams.

That is what I'm asking of you. I'm asking you to potentially do something that is way out of your comfort zone, which is to shop the book on Amazon today. If you have not yet purchased Fertile Imagination, gift it to someone in terms of an option to them so that they can get ready for the new year. And write a review.

If you've already shopped it, you can absolutely just go ahead on Amazon.com, write a review, and I will leave the actual link in the show notes so that this is super easy peasy for you. Look, this is the last episode before 2024. 2024 is coming rapidly and quickly. And all of those words. And I want to just say this, whatever happened this year, really learn from it.

Whatever happened this year, be sure that it is helping you build the life that you need and what you want to see in 2024. Nothing magic happens on January 1st, but what does happen is that you have the benefit of seeing other people. Yeah. Make some new decisions, decisions, and choices in their lives. So why not use their inspiration to inspire yourself?

So I hope you have the best New Year and I really hope that whatever it is that's on your mind or in your heart becomes reality. And it's going to take work. I'm not going to lie. So I'm here to support you. But what I would love again is to write a review. That is the way that we can support more people as they enter into 2024.

Wow. I cannot believe we're here. Thank you again for all of your support in 2023. Thank you again if you were one of these women who interviewed me and thank you again for just being gracious and generous with your time. I appreciate you and I hope that you feel appreciated. I hope you feel really, really appreciated.

Hello, Margot Bisnow. How are you? Am I in? Yes, you are in. You are in. Two months going wild. Yay. Well, congratulations on launch day. I'm so happy for you. I'm so proud of you. I know you worked so hard and you deserve all the wonderful things that come. Thank you so much. Margot. I'm like, wow, this is so much work. But it's so worthwhile.

It's so funny. Like my little boys are looking through the glass pane of the entrance way store. They're like, can we come in that from years behind, right? I know, but I can't believe you're doing this on Halloween. There's so much other stuff on Halloween with costumes and candy and treats and decorations.

See, I got me, pulled my pumpkin. Yes, they do. Very nice. Well, Halloween is the day of imagination. Today, people are pretending to be whatever it is they wish to be. Ghosts and goblins and all that good stuff. So why not Halloween? It's like, let's all be playful, you know? Absolutely. Or even let's be a famous author.

Yeah, that's, that's the costume today. It's a famous author right now. The famous author costume. very, very much. Oh, this is so cool. Where are you? You feel, I feel like you are always traveling with the band. I am always traveling. And, uh, today I'm in Washington, D. C. and I'm excited to be here and life is good.

That's good to hear. That's really good to hear. I think it's been like writing a book for me as a mom in the middle of My motherhood season of life has been quite the adventure, quite the adventure and being surrounded by moms who are ahead of me in terms of seasons of motherhood is a source of inspiration for me.

It's like, you know what? That's really cool. Like you going. to concerts with your son on stage. It's like really, really cool stuff. So you give us a lot to look forward to, but don't you feel that you learned a lot writing your book? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny cause I was thinking to myself, I didn't intend to get a PhD.

But apparently, I got a PhD and I didn't even know it. There was so much research that went into it. I had to research, of course, some of the things that are just like basic, right? It's like getting legal approvals from everybody that's influential that's in the book or figuring out what plus content is on Amazon.com.

I have to share this because it's like the biggest misstep. So I thought. Because I'm a nerd, right? Like you get your MBA as you got an MBA, right? From a top-flight school. And you're like, I thought a plus content was actually like the quiz that I did for my website for people to come and take, or like the opt-ins that I did for my website for people to come and take.

And in the publishing world, it's not any of those things. It's like creative stuff to put on your Amazon profile page. I was like, wow, what a, what, I'm like overthinking this. But don't you think you also learned a lot from the other moms that you talked to? Well, yeah, I think when I interviewed different moms in the book, so like Susie Batiste, for example, like she's a grandmother now, right?

And she had invented her poo~pourri. I don't know how old her kids were, but what I do know is that I still see her on social and everything, like having a good relationship with her kids. And that was a question I got from the early readers of my book, fertile imagination. It's like, well, how can a mom go after her dreams and not feel guilty about it?

How can a mom go after her dreams and still have a positive and good relationship with her children? Like when they become adult, right? And so for me, when I was talking to moms for the book, that became a question too. It was like, okay, so if our priorities are to be like the best mom or to be like a present mom, it's like, how can you be present and also pursue your dreams?

That was a big question. Yeah. So that was so interesting to me when I was doing my book, as since you helped me. I interviewed 70 entrepreneurs and their moms about how they were raised. One of the things that surprised me was there was absolutely no correlation between how much time the mom spent at home and how good a relationship they had with their kids.

And some of the moms were full-time moms, some of the moms worked outside the home, and some of the moms really worked outside the home, and it didn't matter because when they were home, they were present. They gave their kids their, all of their love and support. When they were with them, the kids knew that the moms were following their dreams and the kids respected that.

I personally worked all the time. My kids were growing up and I'm so glad I did. I also think in a way it's almost. I mean, for some, you know what, there's not a right answer. It's whatever works for that mom and that family, but I would not have been happy being home all day. And kids want a happy parent who, it doesn't matter if you're there all the time or not.

What matters is that when you're with them, you're with them. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what our kids, they feel the mood, right? So we're like the barometer in our home. It's like, we don't even need to say it. Like if we're, if we're happy, our kids actually like. And so even if you're masking a brave and happy face and you're doing things that you don't enjoy our kids know that they notice that too.

So being present, I have found is not just like literally staring into their eyeballs, although I've done that for fun, like playing the staring game, but it's also, it's also. Just like having them involved in what you've got going on. I literally had my three little boys pick out the final design of my book cover three little boys who do not agree on things, except this is my video game.

Stop touching it. I asked the three of them. I said, Hey, what do you guys think about fertile imagination? Do you like this option or this option? When the three of them agreed on a cover. I took all of my aesthetic sensibilities and I said, it doesn't matter. They agree. I'm going with that. And so that's the other side of it.

Like, let's say you want to go after your dreams and you want to be present. It doesn't just have to be being present, and doing things that they want to do. They can enjoy and join you in the things that you are doing. And that counts too, as being present. Yeah. So I've never. I've never done one of these before, but I'm just so excited that someone I love just joined us.

Hi, Alex! This is so fun! Hello, Alex! I'm so curious about where Alex is located. She's located in New York, but she grew up across the street from me. And I'm going to go to her mom's house tonight. And it's just fun to see her there. She's now, I've known her since she was born, and now she's a wonderful mom of two gorgeous little kids.

Wow. Amazing. So she's in the thick of it. He is in the thick of it. And she's also someone who follows her dreams. She is a full-time doctor. Wow. That's outstanding. Yeah. Can you imagine during COVID? Oh, no, I can't. That's intense. That is very intense. I can't imagine either. Anyhow, she's wonderful. And it's, this is so fun.

You've got to do these more often, Margot, I, I, I expose you to things you don't. Great. Great. Anyhow, no, this is super fun. I'm used to doing more just on TV and I just did another one like 15 minutes before you, but it's just, they're like more boring and they're not as, they're not, they're not more boring.

I shouldn't say that. They're, they're more traditional and you don't get as much sort of back-and-forth interaction. That's true. That's also the difference between like a podcast and just a blurb. Like when you're on TV, I remember like super early on, I was on the Varney and Coach show on Fox News.

This was 2013 or so. And I got maybe Five sentences in that's about it. But then long form IGTV, it's like, you can then really like express yourself, explain yourself, you see the person's reaction, adjust your message. So I think it's, it's. This is also the use of imagination in terms of a book tour, because traditionally book tours, right?

Like you'll go to a bookstore and you'll sign copies and you'll do a little talk and all of that. But for me, I was like, as a mom, I needed to be virtual. Cause again, I got to go trick or treating. I have three little boys who are all about the candy tonight. So. This was another option for me, like just being sure that I can do what I want to do, but honor the fact that today is also a special day for my little boys.

But even when I do book talks or, or any talk, I'm so much happier when it's a conversation rather than just a speech. I'm, I'm so much happier being, having a back and forth with someone on a stage and then even questions from the audience rather than just giving them some sort of rehearsed statement.

So what do you think that you've learned from writing the book that's the most important thing in how you deal with your boys? That they, they have a lot that they can teach me. Like that's, that's the big thing. It's like, I don't think, I don't believe that our kids are, are random. I feel like we have them for quite a precise reason and it's not just unilateral.

It's not just like the parent teaching the kid like the kid does a number on us. I think when it comes to teaching you or me how to be more patient or teaching me how to, Imagine bigger for myself be more playful, see things in a different way, or observe life with a more present sort of way of attention.

That's the biggest thing. It's like, wait a minute. I'm literally with imagination experts in residence. Like they're in my house. They are so inventive and they see things that I could have never imagined. So it's like appreciating the fact that. They are like mini teachers for me, that was a big aha for me.

Yeah, no, I've learned so much from my kids also. And I mean, one reason is that kids. Your kids aren't afraid to tell you, like, how you're screwing up. It's true. That is true. But, my kids give me a lot of, how shall I put this, positive feedback, about ways I should change, that most of my friends won't tell me, but for example, my younger son, and this is, I think important for every woman actually. Cause I think we're all, we hate to ask for stuff. And my younger son says you deserve to ask for what you want. And that's true. So like I'll be in a restaurant and they'll all have asked for something to be cooked kind of rare and they bring it well done.

And I'm like, and he'll say, give it back. And I'll say, I don't want to bother them. He'll say, Mom, you deserve to ask for what you want. Like I do. Yeah. Yeah. My kids also made me for my New Year's resolution. They made me say that I'm going to try to stop saying that's so annoying. Yeah, I think, my children definitely have a bone to pick with me as it relates to like my food situation.

And I told them, I said, look, you are more than welcome to cook these meals yourself. I'm not like this. Cook that you can then tell me all your preferences and I'll execute on them because it's three little humans. They all have their preferences, but at the same time, it's like, okay, yeah, maybe I should put in a little more effort.

But with the writing of the book, with having a coaching practice, with having a podcast, like I am going to like for sure, oftentimes just be like lost in thought or like focus on work. And I burn so many. Pots of rice and beans. So that's like the one thing it's like, that's the one place where I've just been, like, I give up at least we're eating food and I'm sorry, this is part of your childhood memory experience.

Yeah. You just do the best you can. That's I mean, I think that's the bottom line is you do the best you can and you don't get everything perfect. Nobody gets everything perfect, but as long as you do the best you can with people, people appreciate that. People respect that. I like to think so. I totally think so.

And I think when I was putting the book together, I was like, okay, I have a couple of options. Either I could finish it to perfection and 10 more years, or I could get this out in the world now because there are a lot of moms who feel like this. They've lost a sense of themselves or they don't feel like they have the same enthusiasm in terms of what they want out of their life as they believe they should have.

And so I was like, this is my best foot forward. It's like these conversations I had with the individuals in the book, they're very, very raw. They're very real. And they're also very relatable because I think. The more that I tried to hold on to this book idea and just guard it, the, less valuable the book could ultimately be.

So like your point earlier, what did I learn about myself, let's say with writing the book, I had to get this book out to a lot of early readers. Very early, like I knew, I just knew it. I was like, there's just no way that I've got some sort of like a final answer on imagination for moms. I'm one mom with three children.

My editor is a mom in Tasmania with two grown adult children, but I know that there are certain situations that I don't know about. So I asked people that have completely different motherhood experiences, like a single mom, or I asked a mom that she gave up her career, but she's still in a career.

It's interesting, all the different variations of a working mom like that's something big. I didn't realize Margot, like for me, I always felt like kind of in the middle, like, I didn't feel like a working mom in the sense that I would go to a corporate office and leave my kids until 8 PM. Like, that's my imagination of a corporate mom and a corporate living in Connecticut with like a Metro-North commute.

And I also didn't feel like a stay-at-home mom in terms of Purist, right? So like I'm home and I'm schlepping kids from point A to B and I'm part of the PTA or whatever it is that different people call it. I always felt like I was in the middle I was like, okay, I have an LLC, so I have a business, I have a practice, but at the same time, my income.

Quite honestly, really does look a lot like the patterns of my energy, because if I have a lot of energy and I'm not in a season of nursing, my identical twins are nursing my firstborn or moving globally, relocating. That was when I was able to tend to my business. And so for me, I felt like when I was looking at business books in the past, I would always see the perspective of someone who didn't have those things going on.

It was always someone who was oftentimes the breadwinner, who was a male who would write his perspective on how to like be successful in terms of entrepreneurship, for example. Right. But for me, I was like, well, Where, where does, where does the fact that I feel conflicted in my mind? Like, like, like, where does that come into play?

Like, what if I want to be at home with the kids, but then I also want to be doing a head talk or something? Like, how do I make that real? Or how do I make real wanting to go and be an expat in Australia, but I have a podcast where most of my guests are in the United States, how do I make that time zone situation and family time sacred real, and so that was what.

I thought was missing. That's why I wanted to write the book. Yeah, I always tell women that we're thinking about having kids and working and what should they do, I say, well, it's easy. Women have so many choices. You can have kids and not work and feel guilty. You can have kids and work full-time and feel guilty.

And you can have kids and work part-time and feel guilty. So it's like whatever we do, we're going to feel in the middle like we're not doing it right. Like we're not giving our all here and we're not giving our all there. But All you can do is your best, and like when you decided to put your book out, the perfect is the enemy of the good, right?

I mean, you, you, you just, you put it out, you do your best. You can redo it next year if you want if you've learned a bunch of stuff. I mean, it's a mistake to keep trying to get to perfect, because nothing will ever be perfect. And I think you did exactly the right thing to put your book out when you did.

so much. And, I also think that in business, for example, you actually learn more from mistakes. Like it's like, you, you have to actually try something like someone who doesn't make a mistake is cause they never really tried. Anything is what I have realized like there's just no way around it. Right. And I think also that now that the book is out in the world, I also realize that now.

The book is no longer like, just my viewpoint, people now interpret it in their own way. And I'm not going to be there right next to them saying, Oh, but what I really meant was, or what, you know what I mean? And, and that's something else that's like, it's a point of vulnerability, but it's also a point of freedom.

Cause it's like, what? Make it your own, tailor it to your situation. I believe in moms so much. Because I know that if I tell him to go and like, I don't know, run a marathon. I believe that she can for herself decide whether she wants to, or she doesn't want to run the marathon. But at least, I want to encourage a mom to consider the idea that they could do something that's astounding and they could astound themselves.

I think with the book, my ambition is to give people examples of people who are moms, but also people who are not moms who have thoroughly expressed themselves and use their imagination to the fullest. And from that collection, you decide what makes sense for your specific family and based on what you want out of life.

Yeah, I think, you know, that the reason I ended up writing my book, Raising an Entrepreneur, is because I'd meet all these young entrepreneurs at my son's organization, his conferences, and I'd ask them, like, how did they turn out the way they did? And they all said the same thing to me. They all said I had a mom who believed in me.

And so the important thing. Is that you do your best, you love your child, you believe in your child, you let your child know that they're going to be successful if they put their mind to it, you let your child know that failure is fine, as Billie Jean King says, failure is feedback, and you're there for them, and they're willing to take risks, and they love you, and they know you support them, and you know you're there for them, and they, It's a, it's a, it's a wonderful thing to be a mom and you, you, you, you give it what you can and you put in the, the time you can and, but as long as you do all these other things, as long as you're there for your kids and believe in your kids, it'll be fine.

I thoroughly believe that I think being raised by a mom who has manic depression, the one thing she would say to me is, and, and I'm just going to say it as my mom would say it, she would literally tell me that I'm a genius, like, like that's a big and tall order. But let me tell you how that hit me.

So like, for me, I would be like, I would question myself. I'd be like, wow, my mom thinks I'm a genius. Like, like, and then you, you hear it enough and you're like, well, maybe I ought to try being a genius, or maybe I ought to go for like that hard school, or maybe I should go for that full scholarship, or maybe I should go for some other crazy goal, all based on something that came out of my mom's mouth.

Right. And for me, it's like, whether she was well or not, well, as she was saying, it was something that for me, didn't even matter because, for me, it was like, hope, hopeful. It was like, if I'm a genius, I could figure this out. If I'm a genius, I could really do something extraordinary with my life.

If I'm a genius. And, it's funny how like little whispers that we tell our kids when they're sleeping or on at night, like for me. Tell my little boy secrets and I have it in the book. I have it in the acknowledgments. So I tell them secrets every night and they get three, one secret that's unique to them every single night.

So I might tell like one son of mine, Noah, who's really good at asking questions. I might like it. Flip it a little, I might be like, you are an incredible athlete. As you did so well in Jiu Jitsu today, which is actually not what he would have imagined me saying, cause I might talk about his brainiac skills, but I like flipping it a bit or I'll tell Nicholas, I'll be like, you are an amazing question asker or I'll tell Gabriel, as you have, there's such a kind heart or whatever, even if he was bugging his brothers all day.

And I feel. At night, if I'm telling them these positive secrets, I feel like I'm planting a seed, kind of like my mom planted a seed in me, right? Whether it's true, whether it's not, it's kind of like, I just want them to at least imagine something incredible about themselves and go to bed with that thought.

And I think, I think for me, it's like, like it's, it's important. It's just important. And I think for moms. I think for moms, we need the same. I think we need encouragement. I think a lot of us ask for reassurance from other people, but I think a lot of us just don't give ourselves enough credit for the inner resilience, the inner resourcefulness, and the wisdom that we actually have.

So my hope is that the book helps a mom find that out for herself again, and it's through the pathway of our imagination. Yeah, that's so sweet. And it's, it's lovely that that worked what your mom said to you. But I have to tell you these studies actually show that it's much better for kids to praise them for their work ethic, rather than for being smart.

And to say, not to say you're, you're so brilliant, you'll do well on the test, but. I know you worked really hard and that's why you'll do well on the test. The effort. Yeah, I think, I think effort, you're, you're totally right. I think effort makes a difference. I think, but I, but here's the whole thing, Margot.

I think that all depends on the mom having clarity of mind, right? So if a mom is not well, it's like, yeah, you've got to know what's going on there. But yeah, no, it's nice that you took that from her and that you came out so well. I'm sure she's so happy. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much, Margot. This was so much fun.

I so enjoyed talking to you and I'm so happy and proud of you for your book. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, when is the next concert you're going to with one of your sons? I'm so excited for you. I don't know. Aren't you in Austin? Yeah, I'm in Austin. Oh, I should have told you they played at the F1. Oh, wow.

Oh, that's incredible. Magic giant. Wow. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. There's so much energy that your son has on stage. My gosh. Was he energetic as a kid too? Yeah. He always liked to perform. That's so cool. That's so cool. Thank you, Margot. Good luck. Shop the book today. Just check out the link in my bio Amazon.

Okay. Bye bye. I love how Margot Bisnow asked me to think about the book in terms of my own personal learned lessons because a lot of what gets lost during podcast interviews or IGTV fireside chats like this is the deeper meaning. Like, how did it feel to actually, like, have my stories out in the world? Or how did it feel to hear that a podcast guest was willing to have their episode featured in my book?

How did it feel to choose to go to a cafe on a Saturday morning instead of hanging out with my kids so that I could finish up this book and get it out to the world? Those are the things that are not really discussed on podcasts. So I appreciate Margot's notice in really pulling out in me some of the lessons that I've learned.

If you have a book in your heart, I really hope this gives you some courage and encouragement to actually start putting pens to paper. I promise you, no one even has to see your first draft. You didn't see mine. So be aware. Fertile imagination is try number three, and it took two years and a SWAT team of support.

So please, if you enjoy this conversation, if you got some value, and if the review resonated with you, go ahead to Amazon.com and shop the book today. Fertile imagination, Melissa Llarena. This will be in the show notes. If you shop the book, I would be so smitten if you took an opportunity today to write two to three sentences about the book that makes a big difference.

And every single day, there are 3 million moms that will shop on Amazon. This is back-of-the-envelope math. And I would love the opportunity for Amazon to help me, help me get the word out. And here's the reason why. The reason is this. I want more moms to understand that whatever they have in their hearts, it's there for a reason.

It's because they have what it takes to actually execute this idea. And this is a global conversation. And so that's why the Kindle format is still available. And that's why this is available in a slew of stores. But Amazon is where the reviews are. And so that's why I would love for you to have an opportunity to visit online, share your thoughts, share the book, and let me know.

Let me know if you go ahead and write a review based on this conversation. I would love to know that this is helping you. This is encouraging you to step outside of your comfort zone and leave a review. Thank you again. And Oh my God, until January 2, 2024, may you have the best New Year's. May you be safe.

May you and your family be safe. I'm gonna tell you what I tell my little boys when I drop them off from school. I love you. Be safe. Please do. Be safe. Thank you.

Welcome to Episode 209. In today's episode, you are going to hear how I landed some big-name podcast guests on this podcast Unimaginable Wellness. You’ll hear from Beth Nydick, the creator of the F.A.M.E Formula. This conversation happened on my book launch day for Fertile Imagination. Beth Nydick is a PR expert. Definitely check her out. She is the type of mom who, like me, loves a good dare. As it relates to my book launch in October, a dare might be the key to your success. I want to invite you to consider that as the holiday season continues. You might need the jolt of energy that a good dare provides. What if you do show up to a holiday party with PR movers and shakers? Can that distinguish you? You’ll want to listen to this chat and take notes! The art of daring yourself to do things has worked for me, and it might work for you. 

If you love parties then please do say hi on Instagram which was where this party took place: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

TRANSCRIPT

I also wanted to point out that Beth is an empty nester. And a lot of empty nesters have actually weighed in on Amazon in terms of reviews. For Fertile Imagination, my debut book, which launched and is available to you right now on Amazon, and you can purchase or write a review if you've already purchased it.

Here's something that you might not know. So empty nesters have weighed in and a lot of them say that they wish they had this book either back in the seventies as Kathy Ryan said, and she was an and made their executive and now she's a great grandmother. Or a book that they needed 20 years ago, such as my editor, Amanda  McMahon.

She's actually in Australia and you'll see her name in the book as my editor. Here's what she said and is available for you to read on Amazon as a review. She says, I was hooked the minute Melissa pitched her idea to me. Her passion for helping moms who want a rewarding, but balanced life is contagious.

Coupled with the wisdom of her podcast guests, we'll have you reach for a pen to fill out the questions at the end of each chapter. Every mom will find something in her book that speaks to them from challenging your inner, your imposter syndrome to acting classes to help create a new persona. Yes, I took acting classes.

Melissa says she knows how hard it is to find time for yourself. She has three sons, including twins, and that is true. So her humorous, self-deprecating stories will be relevant to you. So I love, love, love that Amanda shares this perspective. Isn't it interesting how you might not realize that in your own writing, but someone else who's like really in between the lines can notice how you approach and the tone of your voice.

So I wanted to share with you a snippet of Amanda's Amazon review because every single review matters so much. There are about 3 million moms who search and log into Amazon every single day. That is my back-of-the-envelope sort of shortcut thinking based on some of the stats they have online. And what happens is if a book has a hundred or more Amazon reviews, Amazon will go ahead and suggest the book as a product that they can purchase.

Right now, you know it, if you are shopping for the holidays. There are so many moms looking for the perfect gifts for their mothers, their grandmothers, their sisters, their friends, and their cousins. And wouldn't it be amazing if fertile imagination were suggested by Amazon? And in order to do that, it would be really important to have a written Amazon review.

On Amazon as soon as possible because timing matters every single day that I am not at that goal of a hundred Amazon written reviews. That's three million missed opportunities to tell a mom that she can do it. Others have done it. And here is how through the use of your fertile imagination. Enjoy this conversation with Beth Neidick.

And I hope that you absolutely get some value. If you are a woman in business and you've ever wanted to work with a very powerful influencer, I share some tips, and again, dare yourself to do something this holiday season. See if it puts a jolt in your step. It worked for me. Tune in and enjoy the conversation.

So I wanted to know how you got so many of my friends to talk to you today because I went back on their calendar and I looked at your list and I was like, Oh my God, we know all the same people.  And that made me think of all the big names who are in your book too. Yeah, all the big names. So I like talking to strangers and I think that's why I was able to like do this book.

Ultimately, 25 podcast guests have appeared on Unimaginable Wellness since 2017, James Altucher, Gary V, Susie Batiz, and Beth Comstock. These are like really outstanding individuals you see on TV that you feel like, Oh wow, they're like totally hard to grasp, get in touch with. But for me. My podcast started with a dare.

And so one day I was cooking rice and beans as a Latina mom does. And my husband was listening to James Altucher, who you may have heard of and he was chatting with Gary Vee saying anyone that launches a podcast because of this conversation, I will be your guest number three. And then the other person, whoever I kind of swapped right now said I'll be guest number four.

And so it's pretty hilarious because I thought it was going to be easy. I was like, Oh, surely they promised we were from like the East Coast. So we kind of get like, maybe not. Right. So you know what I had to do? I had to, with my husband, go to James Altucher's comedy club and show up there. And he poked fun at me, actually. 

I was like, what is it then, the butt of his joke or whatever. And so I tweeted at him after the fact and I said, yeah, it was me, the person you poked fun of. Can you be on my podcast? And he invited me to his home. To interview him. Yeah. Upper West side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I had to get a crew. So of course I got a former podcast guest who was, who's the trombone dancer, by the way, he's in New York City.

He will play the trombone and dance. Okay. Jonathan Arons. And I asked a former client of mine, who's a military mom to come with me to manage logistics. And that's how it started. It was a dare and it's, it's really about doing things that other people won't do. So like you might want to approach people and you're a PR expert.

So you might want to approach people online, but if you show up in their comedy club, you distinguish yourself immediately. So that was one way that I got one person, James Altucher on my podcast. I showed up, I just showed up. Well, yay. Good, good for you. And that's honestly something I tell my clients all the time is like, it just sending an email or DM is not actually going to get you there, right?

You need an intro. You need something interesting. I think those grassroots old-school tactics, like postcards, or even a letter. Like, how much mail does Gary Vee's company actually get? Probably not that much because no one does anymore. But you send an 11 by 17  message or letter to him, he's going to open it, or at least his assistant will open it.

But anybody that you want, I hear so often from clients of mine that want to get their products on celebrities. And it's like,  DM them six times. And I'm like, That's actually not going to help you. What's going to actually help you is getting the publicist's email list or getting on the phone with the publicist or the manager.

There are so many more ways to do this not only being dared, which I love, love, love the fact that you were being dared, but that you just like showed up in the flesh because that's what makes the difference. And that's, it goes back to like what we actually, what we talked about the other day in private, it's about the relationships.

Yeah. Creating the opportunity for you to have a relationship that ultimately will be the opportunity for your success 100%. And I think it's about counting yourself in. And I think a lot of times we count ourselves out and we decline ourselves. Like we don't even give ourselves the opportunity to put the offer out and get a yes or no.

We say no in our head, or we say, you know what? They're going to say no. Right. And then you stop yourself. So like with Beth Comstock, who's also in the book, former CMO of GE, I didn't grow up with connections. When I saw GE, I would think like, I don't know the light bulb or whatever. And maybe I think Edison, is right.

Was he involved with the wrong company right now? Anyway, the point of the matter is it was something that just felt so far reached. Right. But with Beth Comstock, I went to ad week in New York City. And I showed up at like, I think it was the equality lounge or something like that. And I asked her, it wasn't even in person though.

That one, I did a follow-up. I had already gotten Gary Vee and when I asked her, do you know that she said yes right away? And then in the book, I document this. I chickened out, I chickened out because she said yes, right away. I had not felt like I earned it. Her being on my podcast, the way that I earned in my mind, Gary Vee and James Altucher with everything that I did, was like a hundred-day sprint of trying to reach out to these two guys.

And so with her, I remember, and I have this in the book when I talk about imposter syndrome and feeling like you don't belong, you're not enough. Like so many of us feel that way, whether you're a mom or a business owner, and you're trying to play bigger. I had to go up to Beth. A second time, this was a year later into it.

When I funny enough, there seemed to move me when I dared my client, my client to actually talk to a decision maker, cause she wanted to land a job opportunity. And I told her, I said, you know what, I'll do it with you. You talk to that person and I'll go back and I'll reach out to bed, come stop. And so I call that courage and company, right?

So sometimes you don't want to do it alone. And so you bring someone with you and that's what I did. I love that. I think it's also that's also like having people in your corner can give you the possibility of that big goal that big thing because like I'm, you know me I'm always transparent and I always tell my husband's like you tell everybody everything I'm like well that's what helps all of us.

I'm working on a big project for 2024. I spoke to three friends two of them Their advice was to keep it small. One friend gave me the possibility of what I could create from the project. And I didn't realize They were feeding into, like, safety and you're okay, and you put yourself out there and you could, right, I can retreat and kind of do this on a smaller level, and she was like, Do you know what your name is?

Do you know who you are? Like, we don't do things small, we do, and it's what, it's what you do, it's what I do, and I think so often we don't, we talk about the people that we keep in our circle, but we also think what, where their perception is. On the possibility of anything.  Oh, a hundred percent because that's why for me, Fertile Imagination is the title of the book.

It's like, you are looking at a vision. You're casting a vision that you may have never seen another mom in your circle, including in your family actually execute. So if your top five people have never run a marathon and all of a sudden you want to run a marathon, that's when you need to get fertile baby.

Okay, that's, that's when you need to just be like, all right, I got to figure this out on my own. And that's when sometimes you have to go outside of your family, outside of your circle, even outside of your country to find the people that are doing things that make you light. up. That's why the book has people from all over the world and people who have life experiences and many of them are totally unlike my own.

I don't have a similar life experience as Muyambi who created a nonprofit Cycle Connect in Uganda. Like he and I, we went to Tuck to business school, but we didn't even know each other at Tuck. Number one, that was me talking to a stranger again, which I really, I really love. But number two, he just has a completely different viewpoint on urgency, right?

So if there's a problem you want to solve anywhere around the world, and you're a mom and you're in the middle of a little community, let's say, or whatever, that urgency should be enough to make you say to yourself, I don't know if I have what it takes, but I want to solve that problem wherever your heart draws your attention to.

Right. So that's the beauty. I love that. Well, let's talk about those. I know you have three stages of the fertile imagination. Let's talk a little bit about that because I think, like, even when you just tell me about it, it helps me. So let's talk about it. Yeah.  So a fertile imagination, again, it's like having that vision.

You've never seen it before, but it's enough to drive you to like it. Do what it takes to make it happen. So there are three steps. The first one is waking up your imagination. So the deal is we're not sleeping as moms, but our imagination has been sleeping this whole time. So our imagination is only going to come out and play if it feels confident that we're going to play with it.

Right? So if you have this bright idea. And every time you had this idea, you kept pushing it away. Your imagination is not going to give you some more bright ideas. It's going to be like, this lady doesn't want to play. It's not safe. I'm not coming out. So it goes to sleep. So step one, wake up your imagination.

How do you wake it up? It's that inner work. It's reflecting on what you want. And, and your relationship with calling yourself creative as well. And when I say creative, it's not just like arts and crafts. It's like creative problem-solving. It's. Innovating. It's coming up with fresh ideas. Then it's about, okay, I woke up the imagination.

Now I want to play with it. Right? So it's like a muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it. So again, you're practicing. Okay. How can I re-imagine the way that I mother, for example, how can I reimagine the way that I bring this business idea to the market? How can I reimagine strategic partnerships or solutions to problems that have yet to be solved?

So it's cross-pollination. It's like all these businessy things that you could apply as a mom as well in your life, right? So that's. Playing with your imagination. And that's where you have the examples that I gave, like Beth Comstock, going to Korea, to a K-pop band, to come up with a brilliant idea for GE sounds hard to, to imagine, but that's what it is.

You got to go really all out. The third stage is about stretching your imagination. So any human out there, business owner, a mom, you want to duplicate yourself. This is how you duplicate yourself. You ask. For help, this is how you stretch your imagination. You tell other people your idea and you give them the language to be able to share that idea with their people.

Right? So it's about really taking this ability that you and I had as little girls, the ability to pretend right now is Halloween today. You see people pretending they're all sorts of things. Right. Yeah, we were like that. I may pretend that I was Madonna in the eighties. I pretended that I was punky Brewster maybe.

Right. And it was fun. It was fun. And we played with these ideas. And now as moms, it's like being a mom, it's, it's a role. It's an identity and you could really play with it. Just like being an entrepreneur, you could play with that. And so it's about having that psychological flexibility. With which to tackle life, life is an adventure.

You have to figure it out and be nimble. Yeah, I totally agree. And I'm listening to you as an empty nester mom because I'm going to, I'm in the next stage of what it actually like to be a mom. And as a mom, I know you have a lot of little kids in your house, not little, but little, little, or other mine, it takes time too. 

It took carve out that time to have that imagination because I think a lot of times moms don't take the 15 minutes in the bathroom to think they take it to just kind of decompress But that's that taking that time to actually think to roll over your ideas To really figure out what you want to be doing next, whatever chapter you're in.

I think that's really hard for moms to do. Like, what's your advice to, to, when you're like, well, I'm too busy to think about myself. How do we take the time to think about ourselves? Because to be honest, I have a lot more time now and it's, and it's, it's a little uncomfortable, to be honest. Really? Having time?

All the moms are listening to you like, what? Oh my god, I want to feel uncomfortable.  Oh, you're so funny years. I've been used to like be having them here.  And then for me, I didn't realize how much of my community was my kids' community. And now that that's moved on. There's a lot of space, and I now need to recreate the community of people who are supporting me in different ways. 

Yeah, I think this need for connection, this loneliness epidemic, and how moms seldom kind of like, fess up to one another. Like, this is how I feel, and I'm kind of confused of how to approach this, and it's something that we keep to ourselves oftentimes. I think giving ourselves time to reflect on anything, at any stage of motherhood, is the biggest value add for our entire lives.

For example, in the book, I interviewed someone who's known for Socratic method questions, Mark Champagne. And what he had to say was that let's imagine you're constantly interrupted. No mom knows what that feels like.  But yeah, we're constantly interrupted. Well, here's what happens. One interruption is going to take you off course for whatever you plan for that very specific day.

If you don't take a second to reflect on it, wait a minute, what was I planning to do right now as it related to my long-term plan? If you don't take that second, that pause.  Ask yourself deeper questions about why you're doing what you're doing that could be a 10-year, like off-track sort of road, as opposed to like a five-minute, like, wait a minute, let me get back on track and back on goal.

So those pauses, while they might feel like superfluous and not as.  you're in the heat of motherhood, they can absolutely save you a decade. For, I remember I was coaching 12 years now, working with women in corporations. They didn't have time to breathe, not even right. It was like, you're just moving and you're flying by the seat of your pants and all that stuff.

And for them, it's like, Oh, wait a minute. When I would work with them, it's like, I had not. Thought of what I wanted out of my career. I had not considered how I wanted to experience my life after work. Like there's so many unknowns and you know what happens? Other people define them for you if you don't take hold of that. 

Yeah. And put you in a place, right? And then there's not any possibility because I always talk to my clients the same way. It's like, what, what is possible for you for this lifetime? What is possible? Now what always comes up and I think we talked about before too and it's in the book like the stories of Why I Can't stories that when you can create that story like you can make anything mean anything so in this idea of imagination creating the story of I'm infinite and I can do anything I want and I think you live you and I really live by that Because who told you, you could write a book who told me I could write a book.

Oh, girl. Oh yeah. Everyone. Amen. Right.  Yeah. That's so that's the whole thing. You know, I wish like, I do wish sometimes that someone would just tell me like, play by play, like Melissa, you're writing a book now, then you're doing a Ted talk, then you're doing a this, but the truth of the matter is that if I don't choose it for myself, I'm actually not even as excited about it.

To be honest, I've, I've tried, I've tried to fake the funk and want what other people want for me, but it's really hard because that takes extra energy, right? Like if you have something you want to do and it comes from you, there's just like a surge that makes it possible. It's funny you say that.

Because I was at my therapist earlier. And I'm just talking about what I'm doing. I'm doing a launch and I have this project idea and he said when you talk about this project, you light up. He's when you love your business, but there's a different level of passion when you talk about this project and that, right?

That's like, oh, I should be paying attention to that because a lot of people don't. Your life is like when you imagine what could be possible or what cannot be possible. What do you see? A lot of the blocks are for the moms that you work with.  I think a lot of them, it's this collective agreement that there are excuses that are totally valid in all situations.

So it's almost like as moms, it's like, we don't have enough time. Like everybody agrees now. It's almost like we got into this room and we all spoke before the meeting. And we said, let's all agree that we can all say we don't have time. And that's the imagination from working. Or I don't, I want to spend time with my kids at this age.

They're only going to be one for one year, right? They're only going to be in this stage for that particular time. And what I say to that is. Our dreams also have timestamps, like if somebody's looking to get into AI, you need to do it now, not 10 years from now. Right. So there's timestamps. If you want to run a marathon in the age category of being a 40-year-old woman, yeah, you're going to be in your forties now.

I mean, I guess we could repeat it, but it's not realistic.  So. So it's like collectively we've said, okay, if a mom says she doesn't have time, take it as is and move on. Or if a mom says I don't have childcare or if I don't have the education or if I don't have the connections, then it's like we accept it.

And in the book, I mean, I spoke with someone that's a Hall of Famer rugby player. Okay. In gym class in elementary school, I was the last kid to get picked for every single team sport. So for me to talk to someone who is in a completely different position is like, like fairy tale land stuff. Right.

And, I could have like, by the way, no one told me to reach out to Phaidra Knight. That was me. Like, no one told me, I don't even watch Rugby. But I just felt like I wanted to talk to somebody who had a perspective on standards and the standards that you hold yourself up to. And so while we might have standards that our kids have to be perfectly polished when it comes to family photo sessions, not me, but people do.

My standard is, well, I need to constantly be growing professionally, like period. I don't need to work for Procter and Gamble to have a performance evaluation that I'm marking my success metric by, like I have my own, right? So to your point, Beth, it's like. How, what's the standard for your life?

Right? Like, is it okay for you to use time as an excuse? It's not my standard. Like it's, it's more like if I don't want to do it, I'll use time. But if I want to do it, I don't even think about time. We're like time warping, you know?  I love that. I love the whole concept of that. And when I talk to my clients and they're talking about their sales calls, if somebody says time, I'm like, that's an excuse, how do we reach?

Reframe what time is, but a lot of nerve talking this time and time. It takes time to read your book. So let's talk a little bit about why they should make the time to read your book. Absolutely. So the book is made and it's structured in a way that you don't have to read it in one sitting. That's not the idea.

The idea is it's a guide that you have on your bookshelf, right? And every time that you feel like you're stuck and you just need a little inspiration, you grab the book, you look at a chapter that really draws your attention. Like, let's say you don't feel decisive or you don't feel, or you feel like an imposter, go to that chapter and then see how someone else has managed to take that.

Feeling and like flip it in a different direction, right? Reframe it, reposition it. So if you're a mom right now who feels like, okay, there's got to be a better way. Like right now I feel like I'm dragging through life. I feel like I'm everybody else's cheerleader. I feel like I'm not myself. Self, right?

Like I don't, I'm not happy. Like if you're not happy right now, this is your opportunity to see what else might be available to you. If you've tried like the therapies and you've tried coaching and you've tried and I'm going out here. Because I have tried therapy and it takes me to the back, right?

History. And it's really hard to pull myself forward. Sometimes I've tried coaching and it just depends if you're in a business space and you want marketing coaching, then that's great. But that might not solve some limiting beliefs. Right. But if you feel like. You have more to give to yourself, right? If you feel like you have something inside of you that you want to put out in the world, then grab the book, grab the book, because you're going to see, you're going to see me and my mistakes, and you're going to see other people and like their greatest achievements.

And there's going to be this middle ground that is perfect for you. And I give you questions that you can use to tailor your path. So it's very practical, but it's also very approachable because you could just look at it like one chapter for a whole week if that's your heart's desire and take action. I  love that.

I love it so much. And like always, where can everyone buy your book? Just go to the link in my bio today. And if you're not a mom, you could give it as a gift in the Kindle format. So gifted to a mom who you believe in today is the day of imagination. Let's invite moms to rediscover our imaginations as well.

Use today to start.  Well, congratulations on the book and everything that you put together. I can't wait to read the book. I can't wait to be on your podcast. And I'm so grateful that we got a chance to catch up today. So thank you so much. Thank you.  Thank you so much, Beth. You're amazing. Have a beautiful rest of the day in the neighborhood and may you have amazing bagels very soon.

Thank you. Bye, everybody.  I love Beth's energy and I think that my energy matches her energy, but she's an empty nester. So isn't that cool? Like you could actually be in any season of motherhood and step it up. So I want to also invite you if you have shopped for the book Fertile Imagination, you take the opportunity two minutes today to go ahead, go to Amazon.com, look up Fertile Imagination or look at your orders, and then go ahead and write two to three sentences. In terms of the book itself, two to three sentences go a long way every single day. Three million moms log into Amazon and that's three million missed opportunities. If we delay one day of writing a review if you have not purchased the book.

Then I invite you to go ahead and shop the book. If the review resonated with you, go ahead and gift the book. If you are not sure how to actually like a gift your sister-in-law or your mother-in-law or your friend, something that really conveys the message that you believe in their ideas and you believe in them.

This would be the book to put in a stocking. This would be the book to put under a holiday tree. This would be a book. To give someone that you deeply believe in and that you want to see sore, enjoy the rest of the season and I hope you're done with your holiday shopping and I hope you're done with the things that might have really weighed heavy on your mind.

So thank you for this conversation and have a good one. 

​ 

 

Welcome to Episode 208. Christmas is drawing near. My twins are soon going to be 10 years old. This is a huge moment for my family and I can imagine yours too. A moment of chaos and stress in a lot of ways. Hence, this is why I wanted to share with you an amazing conversation that I had with Jenna Hermans Hermans, who is the Queen of Calm and the author of Chaos to Calm: 5 Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free from Overwhelm. Jenna Hermans interviewed me on book launch day for Fertile Imagination, my debut book for moms who want to stretch the power of their imagination so that they can use it for maximum impact. It was a conversation that I thought would make perfect sense timing wise because WE’RE in the thick of a cyclical season of motherhood in the sense that the holidays require so much of us and it might feel overwhelmingly chaotic. Hence, my hope is that this conversation offers some ideas on how you can remain calm, but you can do more than that...you can celebrate yourself, celebrate other moms, and you can do all of this with greater ease even during the busy seasons of mom life. That's like the greatest gift you can give a mom, in my opinion ---- acknowledgment that you see her shining and it lights you up too.

If you love parties then please do say hi on Instagram which was where this party took place: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

TRANSCRIPT

So here's the thing. I would love your support.

I need your support. Moms need your support. I need to get to 100 Amazon reviews as soon as humanly possible. And every day that I'm not at that goal, I am missing out on really sharing with moms, 3 million moms very specifically, each day that fertile imagination is a possibility for them too. Fertile Imagination is a book that can help support them, that can inspire them and that can get them feeling excited about what they have going on again.

So I want to share with you what an Amazon review sounds like. It is available right now on Amazon. This is from Kerry Hughes. And what's amazing is that she and I were on an expat experience in Australia. And so if you've ever considered being an expat. You'll see that you will love being part of an expat community.

So here's her review on Amazon. She wrote it out. She took some time to really share her opinion about the book. She says if there is one type of person that could use her support out there in the world right now, it is moms. Yet the world seems set up to only demand more of them. This book is a great addition to the possible places moms can look for inspiration and support.

I think Kerry's idea that moms need support and the idea that the world is set up to only demand more of them, was just highlighted, put in bold, and italicized for me during the pandemic, and it's part of the reason why I wrote Fertile Imagination during that time, I had to just say that, okay, I'm pausing my business because I need to homeschool my three little boys.

And it's also the reason why I feel really, really passionate about this idea that we have to use our imagination in order to navigate our lives. It is like Indiana Jones out there. There are boulders that we are running away from that. We need to just run more quickly. So that is what Kerry has to say about the book Fertile Imagination.

I would love to see your review on Amazon. It will help us share this message of empowerment, inspiration, and support to moms around the world. If we have a hundred or more written out two to three-sentence Amazon reviews, that is how Amazon will determine whether it is suggested to a mom who is actually shopping on Amazon anyway.

And right now I know for me, I have literally spent hours on Amazon trying to get. Everything is off of my Christmas shopping list. And I know right now is a big, big moment for a lot of us. So I wanted to share that with you. Enjoy the conversation with Jenna Hermans queen of calm. It was so amazing to share with her what the three steps are to optimizing a fertile imagination and what a fertile imagination ultimately is.

Hello, mom of four. How are you doing? Great. How are you? It's a pub date for you. Oh my gosh. No, it's like crazy, but we're going to keep it calm. No chaos here. No chaos here today. Today you've done all the work already. Your book is officially in the world. You've done everything. Now you just get to enjoy.

You get to be celebrated and to celebrate this huge accomplishment. You wrote, published, and designed a book. You did all of this fertile imagination. It is beautiful and amazing. And I hope you feel so proud of this accomplishment. Oh my God, Jenna Hermans. Yeah. I feel so, I feel so proud of this accomplishment.

It's like, I feel proud of my family too. I mean, like you, you have to be supported, right? In order to accomplish something that's so big. So I was telling my little boys today and I was telling my husband, I was like, wow, like this is, this is like a family thing. This is something we all did together.

Like the moments when mommy had to go to the cafe to write. Or the moments when my husband had to hang out with the boys when he couldn't get a weekend. So it's, it's a family thing. It's a family affair. So super proud of us, of us, of us all, to be honest. So yeah. What is the big deal? It's a big deal, my friend.

And so I'd love to ask you a little bit about the book, right? Like, so why the title Fertile Imagination? Why that? What does that mean to you? Yeah. So for me, it's about casting this vision that's like really big, right? So a fertile imagination can cast a big vision that's going to like give you the energy you need and the lift you need to execute it. And it's particularly fertile if it's one that you've never seen a mom accomplish before. So it could be like your own family, maybe your own mom or like the moms you've been around or raised around, or it could be moms on TV, like in another country, in another sector. If you're an entrepreneur.

So it's like really doing things that haven't been done by someone who has a lot of caregiving responsibilities, where like the stakes are high, like ultra high, like, like we want so much for our children. So there's that, that idea that we want to give them the best, we want them to have the best life experience.

And so at the same time, I think a path to that is giving yourself a chance to feel your best, to give yourself the best life experience. I think it's not just like them or you. I think it's like both. And what are you like, how does this work out in real-time? How do you do this? And how does the book lay this out?

So the book has three sections to it. So the way that you optimize a fertile imagination, it just starts with waking it up. So if you think about maybe, at least for me as a little girl on Halloween, like I was anything I wanted to imagine, right? So if I imagined myself being punky Brewster, if I wanted it to be Madonna, if I wanted to be whatever, like I had the silliness, right?

And the permission to just be whatever I want it to be. And so that idea that you can be whatever you want to be, it fits in very well if you're a mom in the modern era, because we have to play so many different roles and the same way we switch. Costumes, so to speak for other people, like whether we're like the soccer mom, the yoga mom, or whatever we can do the same for ourselves in different categories of our lives.

So you start out by waking up your imagination. You say, you know what, I actually want to write a book or I actually want to run a marathon or I want to do something that's like crazy talk, quote-unquote, right? And I want that. I want that challenge. So you basically want to just heal your relationship by thinking that you're worthy of going after that challenge thinking that you've got what it takes with thinking that you should even though you have mom responsibilities and that's step one you're waking up your imagination by saying you know what let me be sure that my imagination is confident enough to know that when it wakes up And it wants to play.

I'm willing to play with it. So you start with that inner game, right? Self-reflection and all that. Step two is playing with the imagination. So how does that look in real time playing with the imagination can look like this. Okay. Here I am. I'm a mom. I have three kids and I have a book tour. I have seen everybody else.

Physically go to bookstores around the United States in order to like, talk about their book. I'm playing with my imagination today. I'm doing it online digital so that this way I can take my kids trick or treating at night today. Right. And so I can scale my time right as well. So playing with the imagination only means giving yourself permission to step outside your comfort zone and do things very differently because that's how they best work for you.

Period. Right. So that's playing with the imagination, being creative. And the people I have in that section of the book, they've played with their imagination, whether it's in a corporate setting, whether it's in their personal home life or entrepreneurship, like they've decided that there were certain non-negotiables that they would build their business around as an example.

And then stretching your imagination, the way that looks is exactly like this. So it's like, it's asking for help as a parent. As a mom, we ask for help. A lot of times we ask for help when our kids need things, right? So we'll ask other moms, Hey, do you know a great orthodontist or Hey, what's a good team sport or whatever, but what about for you?

And so stretching your imagination means. Hey Jenna Hermans, can you help me out? Today's book launch day. Can we do an IGTV live and talk about the book? And so in that way whatever message I have like on my heart Like I'm sharing it with you and you're sharing it with other people and so there's this Amplitive sort of I don't know if I said it right sort of effect Right.

So that's stretching your imagination. I'm thinking beyond myself as an individual who can only do certain things in 24 hours, I'm thinking, how can I spread myself, but not thin, you know? Mm hmm. And how are there examples of the three-step process throughout the book? And can you give us one example? So, for example, in the book, I have as almost like the culmination of like, this is what a fully expressed fertile imagination looks like.

I have the CEO of Giving Tuesday. And for those of you who might not know you always have black Friday and Cyber Monday, but then there's Giving Tuesday where the idea is you're donating money to a cause. So Asha Curan, she actually is the CEO of this global organization And what she was able to do using her fertile imagination Is she was able to say you know what I want to spread generosity throughout the world. Right?

And when she was offered the opportunity to be the CEO, instead of holding herself back and feeling frozen by imposter syndrome, she said, yes, how, right? And so the way that it comes across very practically is that she then started talking about this idea of spreading generosity across the world. She then.

Hired a team of people who would join her mission, right? And help mobilize this movement globally. She then also lets go, which is something that a lot of moms have a hard time doing. So she let people in different countries express generosity in a very localized. Relevant, authentic, and necessary way.

Right. So her vision was originally her vision, right? She had this fertile imagination, this huge vision. I haven't seen a mom necessarily lead like generosity across the world and bring in 1. 5 billion in a day, right? Through the help of the world, I'm going to do it. And then I'm going to figure out how along the way.

And so you also grow as you. Continue the path along your own mission. So with Asha being the example, I mean, it was just beautiful. When I interviewed her on my podcast, she was sharing how ultimately this was this vision she had upfront, but it's become so much bigger than she could have ever imagined.

And so that's something else that happens, right? Like, let's say you want to do something, Jenna Hermans, and then you start telling other people who are inspired by you, then all of a sudden it could be a movement. It could be something that's like global and it could really make a big impact. So that's fertile imagination. Fully expressed. It's like everybody knows what you're about other people think that that's cool too. And so you all want to kind of like join arms and like do something that's incredible together. So it's very much about the collective as, as moms and as dreamers, like I'm a dreamer, but I'm in equal parts, a doer.

And I think that's the other side of it. And I think that's why you have to stretch your imagination because you can only execute through the help of others as well. Absolutely. And so is this book specifically for moms or could anyone else get something from it? Yeah. So a lot of caregivers specifically are getting a lot of value from the book because what it is, is essentially, let's say you go and you step into the role of caring for like an aging parent, or let's say you step into the role of like adopting your stepchildren or something, right?

You're like kind of new fish out of the water. Like, Oh my gosh, this is like a big deal. You have to, you have to, when you take on a new role, really, really imagine to yourself like, wait, how can I make this work for me? Given what I already had going on, given what I didn't finish or cross off my to-do list or bucket list, how can I make it work for me?

And so the book Fertile Imagination, it's really for someone that is, has stepped into a role. Where they have been told, you're no longer 1st anymore, right? Your needs and wants are no longer the top priority and basically someone who wants to start charting out their own particular path on how they intend to play that role.

It's very heavy in terms of Mom's stuff, because I've been a mom for 12 years. I have three little boys and I've also been an entrepreneur for 12 years, but I also bring the clients that worked in corporations and also my extra 10 years working in corporations as well to the table. So these conversations, they're brave conversations that we need to have with ourselves so that this way we could actually make the impact that we're capable of in any setting, especially as caregivers.

So what do you hope that the readers, the caregivers take away from reading fertile imagination? I mean, the number one thing is that they read any part of fertile imagination, whether it's a particular chapter or a prompt, and then they take immediate action, like period. I don't need to know about it.

No one needs to know about it. But if you, for example, have an idea in your heart and you read a chapter. There's such a chapter that's about being the single-minded focus, let's say. And now, well, I can write an affirmation that's going to support me as I pursue that idea that's on my heart. Like if you literally write the affirmation down, like that to me is the greatest expression of like.

The impact has been made. There's like something there, something tangible. There are even therapeutic properties. So like literally writing out things. And so I, I just want, I want moms to heal. Like I really, really do. Like that's the big, big, big goal. I've seen so many moms in a corporate setting suffer from what I call career trauma and in an entrepreneurial setting suffer.

From what I call the cliff, they fall off a cliff because you're burning out. You've got to keep up with people that have different responsibilities. And I want to stop that and prevent that. But I also want moms to like, know that you need to heal. You can't just mask it. No matter how much lipstick you put on, it's not, it's not going away.

You've got to address what you feel inside. And the reason is because your kids are then going to realize, Oh, if I have something inside, then I'm going to have to address it too. They have to see you do it so that they know that it's normal and it's something that's good for them too. So this healing is important.

So it sounds like the book is, is granting permission for caregivers to. To be ambitious, to dream big, to heal their trauma, and to role model that to the people they're caring for. Absolutely. I think this permission, I think when I think about the moms that I've coached, a lot of the moms are like top executives.

They were in boardrooms and they were doing these very major things. Right. And then when they became moms, it's almost like you feel like mush. It's kind of like, Oh my God, like, am I feeding the baby enough food? Is the baby like gonna walk by a certain timeframe? Right. And these are like powerful women who are now all of a sudden when they became moms seeking this reassurance for some things that are like motherhood-related things, let's say.

And so for me, it's like that permission, that reassurance. That okay, or pat on the back, like, yeah, go and, and step outside of your comfort zone. I want moms to like, bring it back into themselves and take back their power. I think it's complete BS, like that we have to wait for anyone to tell us to write a book, launch a business, quit our job, stay at home, have our kids go to this other school, or whatever.

Like we don't need anyone to tell us these things. And I think it's time. Like it's just time. Yeah. Absolutely. And then, so you have a podcast as well, and how do the podcast and the book marry together? So here's the best part. What I found in terms of waking up your imagination is that your imagination is not going to wake up if you're like dragging yourself through the ground.

So if you're like totally drained and you're not feeling very sane, for lack of a better word, then your imagination is not going to come out and play because it's going to think that you're going to ignore it. You're not going to have the energy. So my podcast, Unimaginable Wellness, what it does is it helps you in terms of bubble-wrapping your sanity.

That's like step one. Like you need to be good. You need to be good from a wellness perspective, whether it's like physically, whether it's managing anxiety, whether it's. anything, right? You need to be good. That's the baseline. That's the survival that a lot of us moms feel that we're in. Like I can barely survive.

Now you're asking me to thrive. So I want to basically provide an opportunity for moms to first let's solve this whole survival thing. And that's the podcast. And the book is really about like, Great. Now you're surviving. Let's get to thriving. And you know what? For me, at least sometimes the key to my survival has been the ambition and pursuit of what I want to strive towards.

Like I need big challenges to get me out of bed. I need big challenges to be like, Oh no, Melissa, you're not going to step back anymore. That's just me. Maybe it's a quirk, but it's, it's something that has helped me. It's like I rise to the challenge when I need to. Yeah. Incredible. Oh my gosh. Well, I am so excited for you.

Where can we find your book now that it's in the world? Yes. You could absolutely grab the Kindle format 99 cents a day, and help it become a bestseller on Amazon. And you could definitely gift it to a mom, even in its Amazon Kindle format way. If you're in the U S. And I mean, it's all on Amazon and the link in my bio.

So like you could certainly find it everywhere and anywhere on Amazon's fertile imagination a guide for searching every mom's superpower for maximum impact. I am so grateful to you Jenna Hermans. So I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for sharing your superpowers with us, your story, and this beautiful manifestation of your gift to the world.

Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Congrats again. Thank you! Bye! Bye! Isn't Jenna Hermans amazing? I think for me, what really sticks out is that Jenna Hermans even says that she feels like an honor in terms of supporting me in my endeavors. I had Jenna Hermans on the podcast and I think that word really resonates deeply because it's not a common word and I feel so supported and I feel so like warm in terms of anyone leveraging that word to interact with me.

Like there's so much, I'm just humbled. I'm like super, super humbled because Jenna Hermans's like a mom of four, and she's doing it and she's calm. Can't say I'm always calm. I'm definitely in the chaos realm, but thank you Jenna Hermans for the conversation and for the book launch positive vibes. I would love to invite you right now to go ahead, just take out your cell phone, and go to Amazon.com. If you haven't shopped the book and you enjoy the review, go ahead, and grab the book. If you are interested in writing a review, then please do so go ahead to Amazon.com and look up the book Fertile Imagination, scroll all the way down, and then just left-click on write a review. Your two to three sentences about the book are so important and will help me share the message with more moms and more moms could use our support right now.

This book is absolutely about supporting moms and inspiring us all. To do our best and really think about ourselves for change. And I know right now in the holidays, I'm thinking about how to have the most magical Christmas holiday, but for real, I think it's important for me to think about what I want to feel as well.

And so I invite you to do the same.

​

Welcome to Episode 207. In today's conversation, I actually had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Lana Ashby Rowder, the founder of LookingGlass Lifestyle, which is about styling yourself and leveraging technology in order to make this wonderful, wonderful gift of aesthetics, a possibility for every single person. I wanted to just share something before we jump in. Lana and I met at a library. It was me talking to strangers which brought us together. She helped me pick out the style that made sense for my book cover of Fertile Imagination. Cool, right? This conversation was on book launch day, and I'm sharing that with you because there was so much excitement in terms of the possibilities of this book. Also, the book managed to get to position one in the motherhood category and also number one in women in business as an Amazon bestseller. 

If you love parties then please do say hi on Instagram which was where this party took place: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

TRANSCRIPT

And so the conversation with Lana is very fitting as she is a woman in business and she's gone through her own career transitions, having been a nurse. before and now a business owner. So this is what I want to share with you. I want to share with you a review on Amazon for Fertile Imagination, my debut book.

So the book is all about rediscovering yourself and really leveraging the power of your imagination for yourself as a mom. Oftentimes we imagine the best in everyone else. I mean, we're talking about like, we imagine the best in terms of some of our kids’ teachers, in terms of our partners, in terms of are OBGYNs. And I want you to take that superpower, that amazing, unmagnificent vision you have for others, and turn it on yourself so that you can dream really, really big. So here is an Amazon review. It comes from someone named Andrew. So I just want to say that it's amazing how Andrew really gets moms.

Because I resonated with his review on Amazon. He says, fertile imagination is a must-read for anyone feeling stuck in the merry-go-round of life. Ain't that the truth? I had to just interject. Using personal stories, interview excerpts, and creative exercises, Melissa inspires you to tap into your inner creativity and go after what you've always dreamed of.

Even if you aren't a mom, this book will help get you unstuck when it comes to reaching your potential. I have found myself frozen sometimes when I think about what I want to accomplish and what I have yet to do. And I want to really be sure that you and I both have some sort of way to overcome those hurdles.

And oftentimes you write the book that you need most. And that's why I wrote Fertile Imagination. So Andrew had an opportunity to write a review on Amazon, two to three sentences, sharing his opinion about Fertile Imagination, my book. And these reviews are so important, which is why I wanted to read it to you first because it give you a sense of whether the book is right for you or for a friend.

But second, if Amazon sees that a book has a hundred Amazon reviews, It will then help market the book to new readers. And here's the deal. How amazing would that be for a mom who is purchasing holiday gifts for her family on Amazon to then get a little nudge from Amazon to see that, wow, there's this book called Fertile Imagination that could actually help me accomplish what I want to accomplish in the new year of 2024.

They would have never seen it if Amazon didn't see that you wrote an Amazon review and about 3 million moms a day log into Amazon. Those are the statistics and that's a little bit of back-of-the-envelope math for you. So every single day that we are not at 100 reviews. Is a day that 3 million moms would not have seen that fertile imagination as a possibility for them too.

So I really could use your help. I want to be sure that we get through that 100 Amazon reviews. So, off to the conversation with Lana. It is sensational. I absolutely love how thoughtful she was. And I also want to just give her a huge shout-out because she is looking for VCs. So if you think that Lookingglass lifestyle is an interesting opportunity for you, be sure to reach out to me via Instagram at Melissa Llarena.

And now for the conversation with Lana, where we talk about speaking to your inner child. And she's a mom that has a little girl. And I wanted to just say that because I have all boys and I appreciate hearing from moms who have very different life experiences. So stay tuned for that as well.  Yeah, I want to talk about your book.

So I didn't realize until today that you had been doing coaching for moms for like 12 years and that's is that what kind of got you to the point where you're like, I want to write a book on some of these stories or share some of these insights that I've learned is that what really propelled this?

Yeah, 12 years of having a conversation that usually is held tightly guarded, like these secret conversations, right? Like I'm at work and I don't feel supported or I'm at work and I'm in this job and I don't know if I'm going to get to the C suite. There are all these emotions behind the scenes, especially with working moms in particular.

So we have these inner conflicts that we're trying to untangle. And I even talk about that, like in the book, like it's like these knots in the back of our heads that are like impossible to unknot. And for me, I just felt like, okay, I'm having conversations with both working moms and also working dads.

And that's not even a phrase, which is pretty interesting as I think about it. And they sound different. They really sound different. And I thought to myself, what if I shared a little bit of what I'm hearing from like, The guys and what I'm hearing from people that are not moms, and I empower moms to like have this like psychological flexibility with which they can create their own life experience like at home, at the office, anywhere you want to be.

That's amazing. I know so many women are going to benefit from this book, moms especially. I had a similar experience. What you're talking about is when I was starting my company Looking Glass, it was like this gnawing in the back of my head that was like, there's more. There's more. Like, just try this thing.

You have this idea. And like, I could not shake it no matter what I did, what I tried. And I sat on my idea for a while, but it, yeah, I think just everything you have in the book, encouraging moms to kind of, to find their purpose and stretch their imagination. That was the point that I really liked was the imagination.

Like, Tapping into that what if that lets you play to your reference about Halloween this morning? Like what would you want to be when you grow up? Even if you're 40, what do you want to be?  Play like it's Halloween like you get to imagine how this can look for you. So I really love all your insights on that. Yeah, I think when you grow up and I say this as a mom who's been around the mom lights for 12 years now both in the U.S. and living abroad in Australia, what I have noticed is that there's this like, almost like kind of like, I give up. I shouldn't play. I'm too old for that. There's so much going on. I don't have time to like, introduce laughter in my life. It's all about like, do, do, do, the checklist, figuring out how much can get done in a day.

And what happens is something that's really, really, Horrible for entrepreneurs, right? So as an entrepreneur, what I hear all the time is to enjoy the process. Well, how the heck am I supposed to enjoy the process? If I keep on adding even more pressure behind what needs to happen in the day. So one way to add a little bit of levity and to actually enjoy the process of motherhood of entrepreneurship, of being a partner in any other capacity.

Is by finding a way to almost add a breath of fresh air to the moment. And so this is something that helps people not just with their children, like today, Halloween, like we are more playful today because our kids are dressed up and we're all having that fun with them. But like, let's say you're in like a very stressed situation, right?

And right now you have a company and there are all these competitors coming into the marketplace. The best way for you to tackle any challenge, any creative challenge is to actually step away and like really daydream like Sarah Blakely, whom I'm wearing, by the way, because of your style, by the way, I have literally legit Sarah Blakely Spanx jeans on right now.

She actually, yeah. Her best ideas came when she was daydreaming. Her best ideas happen when she's like playing with her four kids. This is something that is proven from a business perspective. Like I have Beth Comstock who was the former CMO of GE in my book. I interviewed her and she herself had gone to a Korean pop concert for divine inspiration for something that can add value to a manufacturing company like GE like playing can be profitable as much as it's fun and something you do with your kids.

And I think that there's a lot that we need as moms. We need so many tools like our bags have everything, lipstick, mascara, but we need other tools that we can be like, all right, let me pull this out for when I don't know what to do. And your imagination is that versatile. Yeah. I like to look at kids in another way.

Like I love the idea of mirroring them and thinking like, how do they play? Let's, we should also be playing like that. But one, one thing I love and  Breeja Larson talks about it in your book. Is that like, how would you speak to your inner child? And I've done this where when I wanted to launch my business or I thought I shouldn't go to that work event because my kids, my kids, my kids, I've flipped it in my head like, what would I tell my daughter? If my daughter wants to be a working mom and she wants to launch her business, would I tell my daughter, no, stay home and make spaghetti? Or would I tell her, you know what? Go out. Do that interview do that networking thing that you've been planning and just reach for the star So I've tried to shift it in my head. What advice would I give my daughter? When I'm thinking about my own decisions as a working mom. 

Yeah Yeah, and and here's the thing. Let's just imagine your daughter did choose to make spaghetti we're in a situation right now where we have cellphones. So technically she could put her cell phone on a tripod, show up to that event, and show herself making spaghetti for her kids and still make a profit in whatever it is she chooses to do.

Some straight-up people make spaghetti, record themselves, and make money doing so on Instagram. Right. So, we're in a world where you could actually have a situation where it's like, yes. And yes, I can show up to whatever, like a soccer game or whatever I could be present and focused. And then when the game is over on my way to the car, I could get back online, whatever needs to happen, and make those choices along the way. So I think, yeah, Breeja Larson is so kicked tush. I'm a mom, right? We can't use potty language, but she's so kicked tush. She's an Olympian swimmer for anyone who doesn't know her.

And she was the one that said, basically, what about that little girl inside of you? Like, what is it going to take for you to when you're not motivated, jump into a cold pool and practice anyway? And for Breeja, it was conjuring that inner little girl. And as a mom today, it's Halloween. I want you to go back to when you were like eight years old.

Like who did you dress as? Who did you want to be? What did you think you would look like or be like at this age right now? And, and how can you not let her down? And I think your imagination can help you figure out the how. Yeah, absolutely. The other thing I love about Rhea Larson is reading a book and knowing a little bit about her.

She is an Olympic gold medalist in swimming with a breaststroke, and I have a daughter who does breaststroke and swims. But what I love about her is that she didn't start year-round swimming until she was much older. And so I love that too, like the mirror there for the moms, like, If you didn't start when you were 18 or in college or you took some time off or you decided to be a stay-at-home mom, it's not too late to now turn and pursue your dreams and train for something and learn a new skill and reach for the stars.

So I really love, I love that part of her story. Yeah, and I think Breeja talks about it from a perspective of still being a child, technically, when she started her craft. But then there's also Theo, Theo Travers, who's in my book as well. He was the executive producer of the show Billions. He was in his 30s.

And that's when he decided to go across the road, the road, go across the United States to Hollywood and like pursue writing, which at the time felt like something you would do super early in your career, not after being a TV journalist with a lot of success. Right. So I think this whole thing of, well, I should have done that when I was  18 or 20, that stops a lot of dreams from even having a chance.

And so if you're. 30, 40, 50, 60, like straight up, you're the age you are period. Now we move forward. What can be done? What can you do? And maybe you can create your own category and whatever it is you want to pursue. Like there's sky's the limit with your imagination, right? Yeah. So why do you think that is?

Why do you think moms in particular, come out of college, we're in college, we can do anything, and we can be anything we want to be. And then we stop, maybe we stay home for a while, we have kids, we kind of pursue more of a domestic role.  And then maybe we have these dreams. Why do you think moms kind of fall into that where they feel like they can't pursue those dreams anymore?

What is it about motherhood or about being in this kind of middle life in the 30s, or 40s that kind of stops dreams from being pursued?  Yeah, it's, it's so funny because in the book, really what I share is this idea of holding yourself up to a higher standard than other people might hold you up to. And I think as a collective, as moms, there are certain excuses, and I'm just going to say the word excuses, that we've agreed are valid.

And are the reasons why it's okay for us not to go after what we want. So one of the excuses might be something like I don't have the time, right? However, it's kind of funny how we might make the time to binge-watch something on Netflix But we don't have the time to go to the gym exercise blah blah blah.

So it's like collectively accepting it. Just like when you're a mom, the notion I've heard is if you're a mom, then you no longer come first. Like it's no longer about you. You could take that really literally, right? And so it becomes any moment that you have to decide between your priorities and your child's, you're always going to choose yourself.

Even if the consequence for your kid is not really a big deal. And I'm not talking about the serious stuff. Like you got to go to the hospital.  be on some sort of TV show. I'm talking about things like, Oh no, my kid is not going to show up with like a homemade Halloween costume today. Right. Versus man, I really want to do an Instagram live with Lana right now.

So like right now, my, I know my kids are not having GMO-free snacks this second. Like they're literally at a. a theme park here in Austin that has sugar up the wazoo. Am I going to pay for it? Yes, I am. But that's what I chose for today. Right, right. Yeah, it's all a balance, right? I mean, I think to kind of play off what you're saying about the moms and the making excuses and why it's acceptable to not follow your dreams.

One thing I noticed with my clients is being overwhelmed. And so they make excuses like, I don't really care what I look like, or I don't care. I'm 20 pounds heavier,, but I'm too busy to do anything about it. Or I don't care about clothes. So I don't care how I look in photos. But to me, as I've gotten to know a lot of my clients on a more personal level, and even taking this to my years as a nurse,  to me, that's just kind of a mask for overwhelm.

They have this dream inside whether it's to have a new career or launch their own business or pursue. Painting, whatever it is, but the ideas of like, now that they're trying to figure out how to do it and learning it and starting something, it's just, they're so overwhelmed by all the other balls that they have in the air that they just kind of maybe say, I don't care about that.

Or I used to want to do this, but like, I can't do it now because, to me, it's just an underlying feeling of they're just overwhelmed and they don't know how to act on it.  I think one of the early readers of my book was saying that really sometimes we're also intimidated by our own dreams. And so if that mom that you are saying feels overwhelmed, maybe she's overwhelmed because she assumes that pursuing this business idea, for example, like she's going to have only like her current level, like information, her current level relationships, current level skills.

But in the book, what I share is that you tend to grow with your dreams. So like last year, if someone told me, Melissa, you would have to figure out how to get like the interior of your book ready and set and into like amazon.com. For example, I would have been like, oh my god I don't have my book yet, right? I would have been so scared and I didn't have certain Facebook groups that I would ask these questions to But as I've grown along with my dream as I'm executing on my dream I've been able to increase my capacity, and also figure out where I have gaps and I don't know anything.

So I've been able to figure out like, who can I ask that has already accomplished what I wish to accomplish. So like that mom, to your point, like, let's say you're overwhelmed, right? You want to have, for example, beautiful holiday photos, right? And you see all these holiday photos every year that come to your house.

And you like, I'm making this up, tape them to your wall. Some of us do that, right? Or you like to hold them as this beautiful, like the reflection of a perfect life. Why is it that my kids have their fingers in their nose and their picture or Tommy has a Mohawk and I'm not into that, right?

Like if you feel, if you see that disconnect in the moment. All you have to do is just say to yourself, okay, wait a minute, let me just start with the one picture I really liked. Let me call that one mom and let me just ask her, like, did you have a stylist? Did you hire a photographer? Like did you tell your kids that you would take them to Disney World if they stood still?

You know what I mean? Like you just ask one person. That you admire, like the result of their efforts, just like what, what did they do? And if we're more open about our dreams, even if they intimidate us or overwhelm us or our ambitions, even if they embarrass us too, that's the other thing where we, we feel that's one step forward to actually reducing overwhelm.

Yeah.  So do you feel like moms, it's hard for them to be vulnerable at this point when they're talking about their own dreams and their own things for the sake of looking silly or embarrassed around other moms in the community? Or why is it that we stopped sharing the things that we're passionate about that aren't related to our family and our kids? 

Yeah. So here's the thing. We all want to evolutionarily be part of a group, right? And so if a group with which you hang out with our moms who look put together, who show up at Halloween with like all the bells and whistles of Halloween stuff and, and you all of a sudden want to do your own thing. thing and be a little different, you're going to then feel like the group is no longer going to accept me.

Like my mom, friends are going to think that I am, and I'm making this up, but like me with a book, for example, right? Like right now I have a book and a lot of the people that I've engaged with, they don't have a book, but they have a book inside of them, right? They have a book in their heart. And so sometimes even for me, like I might feel like okay let me not mention today's book launch day because like what if that makes them feel bad or makes them feel any sort of feelings that are not positive also what if now they don't look at me in the same way? What if now when they say I have a book in me, they feel embarrassed because I have a book outside of me?

So it's really group dynamics. And it's about just like this need to feel like we're in a group of people who accept us. And if we start doing things differently than the people with whom we hang out with, we will, and this is the truth, we will notice a couple of differences. And it's all a matter of like, who do you want to be? Who do you want to be? And I think that's a question we don't take time to ask ourselves. 

Yes,  absolutely. So what can we do as fellow moms when we're in these groups to maybe help women express their dreams? Or what questions can we ask? How should we be reacting when they do open up and share? 

Yeah, so I would say the best thing that you can do is ask the mom a follow-up question, right?
So I love asking questions, which is why in the book I have like five questions for every single chapter that a mom can reflect upon and I have questions you could answer like Five minutes by yourself for like five hours. It depends on you. And I would say, ask a mom. Okay. Wow. That's interesting. What made you want to pursue that?

Like, that's a super simple question. That's interesting. What made you want to pursue that? Or another question could be, that's really cool. Tell me more. Super basic. You're just asking them to express themselves. And the beauty is having been a coach for 12 years in the capacity where I'm helping people land these like six figure corporate jobs, et cetera, is that I'm using the same skills, but for moms who are entrepreneurs and who just needs to flesh out their ambitions.

And as it relates. to our Children. And I actually have a five-day challenge on my website that moms can go to. Just go to the link in my bio. But as it relates to your kids, your kids are like amazing question-askers. That's the bomb, right? Two. They also force us to be really simple with how we express our ideas, and that's key to sales as well.

So if you have an idea in your heart and you tell someone the idea you could tell your kids that idea and ask them to Talk back to you and say what did you understand by that? But if you are someone in a mom group and someone says it's like a wacky idea quote unquote what you might want to do is just Ask wow, that's interesting.

Tell me more and leave it at that. You don't have to put judgment or improve it or anything. Just tell me more is, is really amazing. Actually, it feels good. I think  I was going to say in the role of a mom, like having somebody else be like, tell me more and getting the opportunity to talk about like what's in your heart and not having to talk about kids and other things.

And someone just genuinely showing interest in your dream and just really giving you permission and the space to like. put that out there in the universe and speak it to life and tell people like I do have this idea and You never know where that's gonna lead that may lead to them being like I know a book publisher Or I have a friend who already published a book.

Let me hook you up So you mentioned this really early on when I hopped on and I think it's been so true and valuable for me It's like just speak it out there Talk to people find people at the library like you and I met to ask them what they think about this ask them just make conversations because there are so many great people out there that want to connect and want to help fellow moms.

And I've been so fortunate to have a couple of mentors that have really connected the dots with me. But it just started with me having a little bit of courage to really be honest about what I wanted to do. Yeah.  And I think here's the thing, like,  again, it's about what, what's been heard before from mom circles before.

So like, it's common, for example, for a mom to say, I want to be a teacher, for example, right? Because like, the summer's off and all of that stuff. It's common for a mom to say, Oh, I want to participate more heavily in like the parent-teacher groups and all of that. And I know it's uncommon to say, I want to be invested or backed by a VC within like 90 days, or I want my app to hit like 20 million downloads within X period of time.

That's uncommon. And that's why for me, fertile imagination means that you have a vision that's. so big that maybe you've never seen it done by a mom before, but you've got the guts to go after it anyways. And that's the distinction. So I think it's about figuring out what's common and just letting go of that and being uncommon.

And I think that's okay. It's so amazing., I read a couple of chapters. I just bought the book this morning. when it officially went on sale. But I can't wait for all moms to read this and just the reach that you're gonna have with this book. I think it's really gonna hit a lot of hearts in the mom communities and really just tap into that kind of loneliness or maybe unsureness and just really give a lot of people the courage to look inside themselves.

And be honest about their dreams, and, I think your book is going to do a lot of great things. Thank you so much, Lana. This has been sensational. I think you have to become a journalist, girl. No, not at all, but I do have to run to parent-teacher conferences, but I have one more question for you. I want to know, as I have the book and I want to gift it to others for the holidays.

I think it's such a great book to give to mom groups or to give to the teachers as a Christmas present. But what was your favorite chapter of the book that you wrote? For me, it was the one with Diane Bell when I was comparing winning a Sundance award to tandem nursing, my identical twins. That was my favorite because to tell that story, anyone, anyone that's attempted to nurse one baby.

Yeah. Please just imagine what it's like to tandem nurse two and the award that all moms around the universe get for feeding their kids in any way that they decide is like, I mean, we need like golden whatever is out there. The Nobel Peace Prize. Let's give ourselves that. How about that?  I know. I think we don't give ourselves enough credit as moms.

It's like, if we can do all these other things, why can't we be a BC-back company? Why can't we start our own? Store or jewelry line or whatever it is Like we've done amazing things and I think something happens along the way where we sell ourselves short a little bit But you're right I think looking back and being like these are great successes and I did all these things and I can do so much more Absolutely.

Thank you so much. Lana. This has been amazing Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. I can't wait for everybody to read it. Good job. Thank you All right. We'll talk soon. Bye, Can I just say that the different women who interviewed me on book launch day are sensational. So I wanted just to leave you with this one point.

If you feel like you would advise your child to go and take a risk or skip making a spaghetti dinner or, you know, do something for themselves when they had the option to do something for their family. And it might have not been a big deal for their family if we're honest about it. If you feel like you would have provided that suggestion, then do the same thing for yourself. 

As you think about the holidays, there are so many things that you can do to make the holidays magic for your family, but why not consider doing something magical for yourself? And I want to just invite you to do that. So please help me out. Go ahead to amazon.com. Look up Fertile Imagination. I will put this in the show notes as well.

And then if you're on your cell phone, you could just scroll down to write a review and write a review for Fertile Imagination. If you have yet to shop the book Fertile Imagination, then I wanna invite you to shop the book, shop the book, because it is a testament to both being a wonderful parent and also.

Being totally excited by what you want to bring to the world, right? Having nothing to do with your family, but everything to do with your heart's desire. And I want us to really see more wonderful things out in the world. I think we can all use wonder right now. So I invite you to shop the book for yourself or shop the book for a mom who you believe in.

You're literally telling her I believe in you by buying Fertile Imagination. So just head on over to Amazon.com shop the book and leave a review. We want to reach those 3 million a day moms shopping on Amazon so that they can see that fertile imagination is an option for them. Thank you so much and happy December. 

 

Welcome to Episode 206. We're going to talk with Laura Carney, my copyeditor, who is not herself a mom, but really understands what it's like to nurture big dreams. You're going to love this conversation. It happened on book launch day, and she actually helped me take this book to the finish line. So I'm very grateful to her. She wrote My Father's List. And you will love to see her investigative journalism skills at play. 

If you love parties than please do say hi on Instagram which was where this party took place: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

TRANSCRIPT

I wanted to share something with you. You may not know this, but if you shopped the book, Fertile Imagination, and you enjoyed it, I would love to see your written Amazon review. The reason is that Amazon really does value whether a book has a hundred or more Amazon reviews.

And what it'll do is it'll make it a suggested product. And it's so important in terms of being timely because every single day, there's about 3 million moms that might shop on Amazon. So imagine this, what if a mom is shopping for some sort of like really boring product, like batteries or something for her family, and she then notices that there's this book, Fertile Imagination, that might really help her rethink how she approaches The rest of the year or 2024.

What if she got a suggestion from Amazon that Fertile Imagination might be the book that will help her feel like she's reconnected to her inner child? Let me read to you one review that says just that this reviews on Amazon right now for fertile imagination It says melissa demonstrates that motherhood doesn't have to mean hitting the brakes during your pre kid self Drawing from the wisdom of her podcast guests She urges us to dream big discover our passions and take practical steps towards our aspirations I love the fun imagination warmups in each chapter.

They are such a great way to reconnect with your inner child. The reason why I say this is because when I had this conversation with Laura, I think it's so important for you to understand that although you might be listening to two women who are accomplished, who have published their books, At heart in terms of our deepest, deepest, deepest, deepest desires, oftentimes they came when we were just little girls.

So really just imagine for yourself, what was on your heart when you were a child? What is left to actually bring to the world? How can you today really reimagine the way that you live your life, your role as a mom, so that you can apply some time to that dream and coming through for the little girl in you.

Enjoy the conversation. I'm trying to just figure out all sorts of crazy things on book launch day, but I'm here with you and I'm so excited. And we're talking about fertile imagination with my father's list author.  This is so great. I'm so proud of you.  I'm proud of you, too. I think it's been a pretty accomplished year.

I would say you're both of us  You're at the end though. I was listening to the video the final countdown and thinking about you  I swear like the hair the hair bands, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was resonating. I resonate with that. The final count.  I have, I have a few things up my sleeve still that I haven't shared yet.

So a couple of things I'm still working on. It's not over yet.  Very cool. Very cool. How do you feel you're on day one,  right? It's like asking someone before a marathon, like, all right, start running.  I feel like I'm running on fumes. It's Halloween. So like my kids were like, today's a big day. And so one of them is like, it's Halloween.

And the other one was like, mommy's book. And then the other one was like, I have to go to school. So  everybody has their own set of emotions. Mine is just like, maybe adrenaline. Like that's for sure. One of them. Just if that is an emotion, I don't even know. Yes, that's an emotion. Well, I have a few questions ready for you today.

Go for it. But before I get started with that, one of the things I really wanted to tell your listeners is that this is a really good book. I mean, I have a copy of this book. I have read it, I don't know, 10 times, I think.  And it is, I, I never got tired of reading it. Like every time I read it, I found something new to enjoy in the chapters and would be like, Oh, this is amazing.

I didn't even realize this part before. So I really wanted to put that out there. And Let's just start by maybe you can explain what you mean by a fertile imagination. It's the ability to cast a vision that is so big and may have never been accomplished by mom before But it fuels you it fuels you like you want to execute on that vision because you feel that either It'll change your life your family's life or even like just set up the next generation for success.

So for me, that's Can't get more fertile than imaginative than that. I always wonder where the word fertile came from for you. Did that just hit you one day? Like, oh, it's, it's fertile. That's what I need to say. Is it because of being moms? Oh, yeah, that was it. It was, here's the whole thing. Like, I have identical twin boys.

And so, like, jokingly, I, I'm like a fertile myrtle in that way. It's like, it was one of those like, knock you outside of consciousness surprise things in terms of identical twins, which are not like familial, like it's like serendipity. It's like magic. And so for me, I thought, let me just play with that.

Let me play with this idea that it's. I'm hyper productive,  and I want to be sure that other moms, regardless of how they became moms, like adoptive moms, stepmoms, anyone that is nurturing and caring for someone feels that they can nurture and care for their own ideas, actually. And did you, I mean, I know for you, you were sort of gradually discovering that your imagination needed a wake up call, but do you think that that's, that was the case with a lot of moms that you were encountering?

Like what, what was your initial catalyst for, for needing to turn all of your experiences and all of your wisdom into this book? Yeah. So being a coach for 12 years in the online space, and then in parallel figuring out how to be a mom. And then of course, like growing my family, like there were so many conversations I had with fellow working moms where I felt like I needed something else, like I needed like a jolt, like I would joke with people.

I'd be like, I don't need coffee. I need crack.  I just, I just need like way more to kind of like lift off and soar and do what I want to do. And I felt like other moms felt the same way, but maybe they weren't as colorful in their language. So I was noticing that a lot of moms felt like they had these big ambitions for their kids.

It's like my kid can do anything and when they grow up, I want them to be happy and all these. things. And I felt that at the moment of the pandemic, when I wrote the book, I was like, okay, right now, all that talk about our kids can really serve us moms or caregivers. It's kind of like, we need that jet pack.

We need that engine to get through the stuff that's so heavy and hard, especially at that time. But also like, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a writer, if you're a mom, it's like, there's so many hurdles. It's kind of like Indiana Jones and the temple of doom. And when he was like running and this boulder was coming after him, like that's like motherhood.

That's also like writing a book. I'm sure with you like pitching your book, like that was not a walk in the park. That was like a run in a dungeon. So it's like, it's like you, you need something. And when I decided to write the book, I was like, okay, well, if I could write this out, first, I could express myself more clearly.

Second of all, I could then figure out what I need to do. So sometimes we write. The book we need ourselves, right? I, I knew that when I was a little girl and even in college, for example, I remember thinking these big, big dreams. And I was like, and I want to go to like graduate school and I want to live in another country and I want to do this.

And, and that spirit is what made me defy the odds. It made me do things even when I was exhausted, even when I had other family obligations. And I knew that moms and anyone who's caring for anyone needs more than what you might have on paper in order to, like, get through the moment and, and also learn from the moment.

So that was important to me. One of the things I really loved about your book was the structure of it and the way you, you segmented all of your podcast guests and their wonderful wisdom into these three concrete sections. And I was wondering if maybe you could.  Without spoiling anything, if you could explain a little bit about how each of those sections came to be and what each of those sections means to you. 

Yeah. So for me, the whole like waking up your imagination, I think there's like an inside sort of job and also like external environment. So there's three steps to optimizing your fertile imagination. And when you. First, kind of think to yourself, what is it that I need most in this moment? You have to recognize that your imagination wants to feel safe and also does not want to be ignored.

Like if you are there a mom and you're just like busy and occupied and in your mind, you're like, man, I'd like to like add a little bit of laughter in this moment, but you ignore that then that thought will most likely not pop up as readily again. And so first you. Right. So first you want to step one, wake up your imagination, but you also want to let your imagination know that, and I'm ready to play, like, I'm not going to ignore you.

So that's why like the first part of the book is about the inside job. It's about your internal environment. It's about your relationship with calling yourself creative, which for a lot of moms, funny enough, when I've asked. People who look creative to me, maybe I'm just making assumptions, but I'm like, wow, they have like a great haircut.

They have an amazing shirt or style when I've told them, wow, you're creative. Like I've gotten like this look, like I have eight heads, like I'm not creative. And I'm like, gee, you look really creative to me. Like you have an amazing style. Right. So that's part one. It's about making sure you work on your relationship with creativity, the inside job, so that this way your creativity can feel like, okay, if I wake up.

She's going to play with me. Then the second part is about playing with your imagination. And it's just like a muscle. Like if you're not working it out, it's going to not work anymore for you basically. Right. And so playing with your imagination, that's where I see innovation coming from. right now. So it's not just like being a mom and being like playful at home with your kids, although that's part of it.

It's also about being very present in the moment and using your observation skills to seize opportunities. But it's also about innovating even in the place of work. Like right now, a lot of people are scared of AI. Well, the one way you could outpace.  is by using your imagination and going into categories that are unexpected and irrelevant, seemingly to your category and figuring out how to like almost cross pollinate really random ideas, James Altucher, who's in the book calls that ideas sex, but I, I digress.

So,  so yeah, what are, of course he does. Of course he does. And we're talking about fertile imagination. So it all works out. So that's the second part, right? The second part is about  playing with your imagination, playing with ideas, being more playful in your life and the way that you run your life and how you think about yourself as like a mom or a woman or a partner.

And then the third part is stretching your imagination. And so a lot of people, including someone that's like deep in a book. tour launch, you want to duplicate yourself. You wish you could like be in Seattle and be in Miami at the same time. Well, okay. That might not be the case, but duplicating yourself for me is stretching your imagination and seeing how you can enlist the help of other people.

So like mobilizing your network and let's say you don't have a network. Making sure that on the inside, when you're by yourself, you're asking yourself really good questions. So I have someone that is really big into the Socratic method. And that's one way that you can keep yourself on track, right? In terms of a goal.

So three parts, the book, the way that it was structured was meant so that. If you don't have time in the day to like go to the toilet by yourself, you can technically just look at a reflection question and just like think about it in a carpool to pick up your kid at school. And that's it. That's suffice to get you thinking outside and beyond of your everyday normal life. 

That's great. Yeah. I mean, I think stretching was my favorite one because you just had so many sections where there's almost mantras for the lift for the reader to remember and just practice themselves in their daily lives. And I love how so much of it is about mindset to just so many of the amazing people you talk to.

And I guess I was wondering if maybe you could talk a little bit about that too. How did you get all these incredible people on your podcast? Yeah, it's the interesting part is a lot of the books that I myself read, right? So like whether it's a book from Tony Robbins or Tim Ferriss or like all these books about personal growth and development, not to say that Tony Robbins was connected in the beginning, but obviously at this point he is with me.

It's almost like I pretend that someone on TV is like a real human. It's like this very weird. Quirk, but I've done it since university level, right? In college as well. And what I've done is I've always expressed myself in a very authentic way. Right? So I'm not here to have someone like Susie Batiste, who I did interview my podcast. 

I'm not here to be like, Oh, I want to sell something to you. Or can you invest in my business idea? I'm here because I want to get to know the story behind how you had the guts to declare bankruptcy two times, tell your kids, and then get back on the horse. And I'm going to be honest about my own perspective and we share some sort of commonalities from our history.

And so when I would pitch a guest, whether it's Gary Vaynerchuk or James Altucher, Beth Comstock, I would always approach it from a. Position of authenticity. And as someone who was in career coaching for 12 years, and obviously networking is like the Holy grail of landing the opportunities that you desire, what I always found were two things, strategy one, I always like getting on the shortest line at a supermarket.

And I think any mom, any human, unless you're weird, you like getting on the shortest line of a supermarket, right? And the shortest line tends to be like the social media channel where they don't have as many followers, for example, or like me, I literally went to James Altucher's comedy standup show. Like he's.

Actual physical comedy club in New York city. Not a lot of people do that because they hide behind the screen, right? And tweet at him, but that made me approachable. And so I went to his house and I interviewed him and now he's in my book, right? And so with all of these things, what I'm saying is this get on the shortest line, number one.

So do things that other people will not do. And if you're a mom, extra bonus points, because a lot of us say, That we never go out or we don't have time or we're too busy to network. And if you're a mom who does this, who goes buddy club or what have you, you really do stand out and these people notice like decision makers notice, but first be authentic and know your stuff.

Like you got to know your stuff. So, okay. I have one, one last question. I know you have to go.  My last question is, I think the thing that really amazed me as I was reading your book is it seemed like. You found a way to get back in touch with your authentic creativity and your authentic self, and that it didn't take away from your being a mom.

It actually probably made you a better mom, or at least made you feel more satisfied as a mom. And I can imagine a lot of moms might say that. Like, I, like, my first duty is being a mom, and I can't be distracted by pursuing my creativity and making my imagination fertile again. What advice would you have for moms like that, based on your own discoveries?

Well, it's, it's interesting because let's say the mood of the house, right? So the mom is the barometer for the temperature, the mood of the house. As a little girl, I knew if my mom was happy. Like I knew it. I felt it. She didn't have to say it. And I also knew when she was pretending to be happy. Right. And so for me, I think as we have to give our kids so much more credit than we might, like we can't fake it.

You might be able to fake it to get through a corporate boardroom. Right. You might be able to fake it to get through a job interview. You might be able to fake it in lots of scenarios, but with our children, I think at the same time, Cellular level, whether you're an adopted mama or step, you are the barometer.

And so if you want your home to be a nice 76 degrees Fahrenheit, whatever that is in Celsius, then it behooves us to prioritize like our, our, our inside game, how we feel inside when we're real, like we have to be. Honest about it. And I think that's why it's a priority because if we are thinking that our kids somehow are going to figure things out That we have not figured out like somehow magically then I think that's a little bit of a miss Like I want my kids to be happy when they grow up.

I want my kids to be successful when they grow up well I need to go first. I need to also show them what that looks like. It's not all sunshines and roses. There's falls, there's embarrassment, there's mistakes. And so my kids need to know that. Irrespective of that, I still persist and I still move on, and I don't think it takes away from my time with them.

I think it's a lesson learned for them. I feel like it's also helping them in the future because I can say, Mommy did it, and so can you. And it's not just I'm saying it, I'm showing it. And I think it makes a difference. I love that.  Well, congrats, Melissa. So excited for you. And I just, I know this book's going to do so well.

 I want to be sure that if you want the book, grab the book today. Let's make it a bestseller. Today's the day that we're all using our imagination for other people, for our kids, for the kids that we give candies out to. What if today was also the day that you can help a mom rediscover her own imagination?

Wouldn't that be like amazing? Yeah, I think that's my husband who just tried none. He said, not a mom, but I can't wait to read the book. And that's a good point because I'm not a mom either, but I love this book. And this book is, is really the way you wrote it is great for everyone. Thank you so much, Laura.

I think this has been, this is so fun. Gotta be, I gotta say, this is more fun than editing a book. I don't know. Maybe.  Yeah, it is,  but that's fulfilling too. Especially when it's a book as good as yours. Aw, thank you so much again. Okay, thank you. Good luck today. Happy Halloween. Thank you. Happy Halloween. Bye everyone. 

Isn't Laura amazing? So I wanted to just share this one idea. In terms of how you might really think about being the barometer of your home. Really imagine to yourself how the mood of your house changes if you're having a really good day Or maybe you got some bad news. I want you to really take that seriously It's something that you can control the happier mom is the happier everyone else is as well And so think about that as the holidays draw near if you feel overwhelmed or you feel like, you know You're not gonna have the most perfect sort of wonderful dinner spread Don't worry about it.

Really apply some levity and fun to the experience and the beautiful moment. Again, you're the barometer of the home. Please, if you did read Fertile Imagination or you purchased the book and you've gotten through a couple of chapters, feel free to write an Amazon review. It makes a really big difference.

Every single day, there's about 3 million moms that go on amazon. com. And they are not yet seeing fertile imagination unless we've already hit the 100 mark that I don't know right now.  What I know is that with you taking two minutes to write two to three sentences about your impression of fertile imagination today, that means that tomorrow there'll be more moms that will see the book as a suggested product.

And the book is all about believing in the mom who's actually Being a mom in the moment, right? Making sure her family has what it needs, and shopping from Amazon. Imagine if that message of I believe in you is part of why she is on Amazon. What if she actually then purchases the book and on her heart, she wants to make a big impact and somehow it affects you in your own local community.

You never know. Or what if that mom is you? What if you have a desire on your heart and you have yet to shop the book? So head on to Amazon. You can do it right on your cell phone. If you shop the book, please write the Amazon review. It really helps with sharing the book with more moms. And if you haven't just yet, feel free to shop the book.

A lot of individuals have gotten a lot of value out of it. And as Laura said, she's not a mom. And in her opinion, she also was able to get a lot of insights from the book that she could activate in her own life. Thank you. 

Welcome to episode 204. Today's episode, you're going to hear from Bethany Braun Silva, who interviewed me on Fertile Imagination's launch day on Halloween. Bethany is the author of Like a Mother, Banish Guilt, Blaze Your Trail, and Break the Rules to Create a Life You Love. It's amazing to be interviewed by a fellow mom, author, and New Yorker.

We discussed how watching our moms go first really informed how we, and what we thought we were capable of as moms. I wanted to just share this. So this episode is brought to you by my book, fertile imagination, which actually hit number one, Amazon bestseller in two categories. motherhood and women in business.

It's available right now and it makes for the perfect gift.

Shop/gift/review - Fertile Imagination: https://amzn.to/3F6AgMu

If you enjoy this episode then tell me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

TRANSCRIPT

So quick napkin math. Here's the statistics. Reviews on Amazon matter and when they show up matters even more. Right now, the books that Amazon will share with anyone online. Need to have at least 100 Amazon reviews. So two to three sentences that share your opinion about the actual book.

So imagine this every month, 197  million users log on to Amazon each day, 6. 7 million users log on to Amazon. And if I had to just guess, I would say maybe 3 million moms log into Amazon every single day. What if today? 3 million moms would have seen Fertile Imagination, my book, as a recommended product.

For that to happen, we need 100 written out Amazon reviews. So each day that I am not at that 100 number, that means that there's 3 million missed opportunities to suggest to a mom, a tired mom, a mom who doesn't believe in herself, a mom who needs some inspiration. to actually have seen fertile imagination in her list of recommended products to add to her shopping cart.

I'm all about encouraging moms on how to think for themselves in terms of the changes that they want to see in their lives, in their homes, and in the world. Could you imagine if 3 million moms today saw the book fertile imagination, which maps out exactly how to go about making a maximum impact based on your unique heart's desire?

That's what we're going for. And I need your help. So as you listen to this conversation, I would love your support in taking your cell phone, going to Amazon, selecting fertile imagination, and then scrolling down and just left clicking on write a review. That's if you actually shop the book, if you having it shop the book, then listen to this review right now.

And it's available on Amazon. So it says, As someone who is and advocates for moms, it's sometimes difficult to spark moms to be inspired by themselves. In Fertile Imagination, Melissa not only reminds moms we're inspiring, but provides the tools, anecdotes, and encouragement to get us moving towards what's important.

Changing the world by nurturing the inner genius we each possess. As I turned the pages, I was reminded of many dreams I placed aside and recommitted to move toward action. Bravo. That is the sort of message that I would love moms to be able to listen to, hear and absorb and activate in their lives.

Enjoy the conversation with Bethany Braun Silva. Tell me about why you launched today. Like, what was it about you and Halloween and launching your book? Yeah, so Halloween is the day that, as a little girl, I don't know for anyone else that's like an 80s kid or whatever, but there was a Halloween that I was like Madonna, I was Funky Bruiser, I was Turbo Shortcake with the plastic like mask.

And that was the day I got to be anything I wanted to be. You could be anything you want to be. And when I was writing the book, Fertile Imagination, I was thinking to myself, I was like, what? Like we're moms and we actually get to play that role in our own unique way. We can be. any kind of mom that we wish to be and today is a day that like it's almost like permission to be weird literally one of the chapter names of my book so as we see kids out there like dressing up in like these like very random like gnome or Fall guys or whatever sort of costumes.

It's like, well, what about us? What about us moms? Right. We're like the ones that are making these days, these moments so special. And part of that is the vision that we have for the childhood. We want to provide for our kids. Like it's our vision for other people. And so the book is about, well, what's your vision.

As what would you like to imagine more of in your life, in this world, in your community? And so for me, it's kind of like, okay, well, obviously it would have been obvious, right? Launch on Mother's Day. Like, it makes sense. But for me, I was like, nah, I want to do things differently. Like that's just not creative enough for me.

It's like, no Halloween. Let's do it today. Let's help moms rediscover our imagination. Cause we're in that mind frame for our kids. Today. I mean, there's some crazy imaginative costumes I've seen out there. So. Yeah. For me, it made sense. I love that. I love that. That's really what I'm all about, too. Like, like rediscovering ourselves, pursuing our passions, being like unapologetic about it.

That's also why we connected, I think, so much, too. Like, we're very aligned with, with those things. Like, we're moms, but like, we have our own stuff happening here.  Yeah, absolutely. And I think we go first. Like I feel when I'm sure through your conversations and like through my conversations, you're talking to moms and like we want so much for our kids.

But the interesting part, it's like, well, how are they going to get what they want if we don't feel like we have what we want yet? Like, right. Are we skipping something like Yeah. Like we've got to like lay the path, like show them, okay, this is what it looks like to move forward and then fall down and then get back up.

This is what it looks like to like try doing things in one way and then trying a whole different way. And I think That's part of the, the, the idea in terms of the book. I think it's really about showing my kids. Mommy did it. Mommy did it and mommy did it and you can do it and you could do even better.

What I mean, because this is where, this is where I left off. So here you go. Yeah. I love that. And actually, yeah, I shared that yesterday on my Instagram when you commented, because like, I, I kind of like followed a dream and a passion, like. When I was pregnant, like I was like, it sort of all started to like align for me then and I was 26 years old and that's young, but it wasn't like young to go into this to like journalism, right?

Like I was like a 26 year old pregnant intern. There was  like, I fought against a lot of that. But then now when I look at what I've done and like seeing myself through my kids eyes, it really is. So fulfilling in that way. Like my kids know that they can do anything at any time. Like it doesn't have to be on anyone's timeline because I did it late or push myself through like in a, in not in a nontraditional timeline.

So I love that I'm showing I'm like that example for them too. Absolutely. And in the book, I actually interviewed, so it's kind of like a funny story, but I'll save that for the book. Basically, my former landlord happened to have been also a Senator and House of Representative for New Hampshire, Martha Hennessey, and she's so badass, I will say, which is why I featured her in the book.

But is it too late for anything? Well, Martha proves us Totally like, no, there's nothing that you want on your heart that it's too late for, like she retired quote unquote, and decided to then run for office, like two different positions, one, then both. She's a grandmother of seven grandkids right now. And I think her as an example, and just kind of like looking outside of our family.

So let's imagine that in our families as. Was the case for me. We don't have these examples. I don't know for you, Bethany. Did you have journalists in your family? I don't know. No journalists, but I did have a mother who pivoted at around 34 years old. And that's when she got pregnant with me to a brand new career.

And she was an artist. And then she went into, into medicine and literally like kicked so much ass, like, On like, like, incredible. She just retired like, like, like two years ago, but like literally hadn't went the pivot with had nothing to do. And same thing with her. She had nobody in that in the medical field to rely on.

She put herself through her got her second masters while I was like a baby and then got a doctorate and like, I watched it all. So I have to say that while I didn't have like connections, I had a really good shining example of like what it means. to like really go after a dream while like providing and caring  for a child.

So that's, that was really my inspiration for sure. Yeah. And, and I'm sure like for you, it's, it's interesting because there were probably moments that your mom would not have thought you were looking, but you were.  I was looking, I was looking and actually for me, I didn't really put that together until I kind of was like, Oh my God, I'm doing the same thing.

Like I, maybe I did it a little bit earlier or whatever, but I literally was doing the same thing. And, and then I, when I realized that I was like, wow, I saw that I was able to do it. I had permission. I gave like the audacity to believe in myself because I had this mother who worked her ass off. She was, she is and was the breadwinner in my family, because it was crazy, it was crazy.

But no, it's really such a good, kind of like a very nice like tie in for me. And then now being, now raising boys, like what does that look like? Like wanting to be that example for them, but also to understand sort of like the role that they play within society too. It's very different than raising girls.

So yeah, and I'll never know, right? Like I always joke with people. I'm like three's enough for me boys, my identical twins. And I think when it comes to that, just like, like, I feel like the greatest gift, like as a mom that you can give your kid is living your own best life. Like, I don't really don't see that as like a selfish thing.

I see that as like an example. And I see that as like an opportunity because like maybe. For me, for example, as I was writing the book, what really stood out for me was my kids were watching me. Like they were seeing me like go out on a Saturday morning to like write this book. They were watching me like sometimes honestly be at the foot of my bed while I would, while we were living in Australia, typing out some copy or whatever, sending it to my editor.

And they were watching me do things and. I was so uncomfortable at times, but I was still doing them. And I think when it comes to any endeavor, any goal, right? Like if you want to pivot into like journalism, or if you want to pivot like me from coaching marketers to coaching entrepreneurial moms, it's like.

You've got to do it even in uncomfortable moments, even regardless of the season of motherhood. And I think that's something else like your mom, for example, and yourself, like your dreams, both of your dreams, they were important to you at that stage of your life. It happened to coincide with being pregnant for both of you, right?

Like,  right. And so, which is interesting, right? That's, that's a rather productive time of a mom's life. You're creating, right? And so it's kind of like, well, what do you do? Like, do you pause the desires of your heart or do you find a flexible way forward? And so that's where our imagination, our fertile imagination comes into play.

It's like, okay, if you are able to figure out the logistics of just a day, like today, right? Like, how am I going to get my kids from house to house safely? How am I going to look through their candy, make sure it's safe to eat, right? How am I going to hide their candy? Or somehow secretly throw it away. 

That's so bad. Don't tell my boys.  I know, right? It's too much sugar. But how am I going to do that? So you use your creativity and your imagination for things like that. Right. And I think the same can be done when it comes to our dreams, irrespective of the complications that are involved. And there's a lot of variables when it comes to kids that much.

I could tell you over 12 years. You might plan your family out beautifully, just like we might plan our birth plans, but ultimately it's like when stuff happens, you've got to rise to the occasion and make stuff up. Yeah, I really like what you said about like the flexibility, right? Like flexibility in because parenting really is all about that, right?

Like kind of being in the moment, flexible, adapting to anything that could happen at any moment. But also when we think about like ourselves, like, right, like. Having to be flexible with our dreams and pursuing our goals. And if something kind of comes up, not to quit, right, but to be flexible, to figure out the way to manage it so that you still have that, that goal in sight.

I really liked that actually. I've never really thought of it like that before, but I, that's pretty much how I've done it. And it's, I'm like 11, 12 years in the game of parenting and 11, 12 years in my career. And that's not. By accident, like we just, like we just said, and I'm thinking about all the sort of flexibility that I've had to exercise throughout parenting and my career as like I was like doing them in tandem.

And it's really wild actually to think about. Yeah, I think that that's something that I think that's the difference between achieving a goal versus not achieving a goal. So it's kind of like if you have this one thing that you want to do as a you, you might write it out. You might even come up with a beautiful like roadmap  and, and that's amazing.

However, what about that day when you wake up and the night before your kid was vomiting all over the place? Projectile vomiting because I've been there right or like what if school is shut down for whatever reason a flood I'm literally thinking about real life situations 

Right or what if you you your file like is corrupt and you can't open it Again, 12 years in as an entrepreneur online, like these are real things. So what do you do from there? Right. And so in one chapter, like I was thinking about it, there's a Sundance award winner, Diane Bell, who had never written like a movie before, had never produced, was told you're never going to get it done for a hundred thousand dollars.

And the learning that I got from her was like, well, in her mind, she invested in her idea and she set forth on a plan that even if no one else believed was possible, she was going to keep going through the obstacles, the hurdles, and just keep moving forward until it was just done. So she almost. started with that end in mind  and figured it out along the way.

And for me, I think to myself, like feels a lot like Indiana Jones and the temple of doom, how he's like running and there's this boulder behind him, like that's straight up motherhood and entrepreneurship, right? What happens when the algorithm. Changes, what happens when childcare falls apart, you've got to be so nimble, like Jack, be quick, Jack, be nimble, all that stuff.

No, no, no. Mom, be nimble. Mom, be quick because you got to jump over a candlestick, legs and a million other things, right? And Legos. All those hurt.  Those hurt. Yeah. I know. It is, it's, it's, it's really, I was going to say something too about, oh yeah, so about like, it's one thing to like, be flexible, but like, it also is, and I don't even know if you want to get into it, but like how, like, society and, and the private sector is not really set up to support flexibility.

So we have to also think about that with moms who are Thanks, Cassidy. feeling like they can't do it, right? Like I have to give up. I have to stop because of the way like things are set up for them. Like we're kind of like not only fighting against our own stuff, right? Like being as flexible as we can managing our careers and our kids, but also fighting against like not being supported at work, like not feeling like there's a place for us if we come back after maternity leave or something like that, so.

Is all of that and I think we're really now seeing a push for that like because of these conversations because we're like after the I talked about this to like the pandemic was so unkind and that's like we putting it nicely to mothers right but now we're like coming back like A little bit pissed off, a little bit more ambitious, like more ambitious than ever.

And like, like this can't happen again. You saw what it did to us. I mean this is, and so I think that's it too, like having these kinds of conversations to change the workplace, to change at the federal level for child care, like we need these things to be successful. And so I think any mom who's thinking or maybe watching this and be like flexible.

I can't manage another thing in my brain like you want me to be now flexible for this and this and this is like, just remember that the way things are set up right now, it's like it's really not to help you. You're to help you to succeed. So just keep that in mind, like give yourself a little bit more grace as you're like navigating this whole A hundred percent.

And I would say when I was coaching marketing executives for the last 12 years, and I was coaching on purpose, both men and women. So although I was talking with a lot of working moms, I wanted to just see how the conversations were different between working moms and working dads as an example, right?

And what I noticed was that for women, there was this like major investment in like that one job, that one good. boss, that one company that lets them go work from home one day a week, that they would then burn themselves out to keep that job at all costs, not at no cost, at all costs. And so I was calling that career trauma.

And I was seeing that. So vividly because moms are going to put on a game face, you're at the office and you're like, I'm here to resolve stuff within this timeframe. So I could go back home and do my stuff again, right? The second and third shift. And I think this flexibility, it's why I decided to leave the corporate setting.

Although I have my MBA, like the MBA in a corporate setting. Matters a lot, quote unquote, obviously there's now some dilution there, but in the entrepreneurial space, it does not matter a bit. So why did I do that? I did that because this was pre pandemic 12 years ago. I did not find the flexibility that I desired, which was to work from home one day a week on a Friday with a full straight up Excel communication plan that I put out there to my former boss.

It wasn't possible. And so for me, I said, what, okay, I'm in a position where I have the credentials. How can I make this work for me in an entrepreneurial setting? And the last 12 years as an entrepreneur, I've noticed a very similar dynamic. So you talk about flexibility in the corporate space, which is something that each mom has to work out for herself and be her own advocate for, but in the entrepreneurial.

space, the same sort of factors are at play, right? Because what entrepreneur out there has not been on as an example, Instagram 24 seven to keep up with the algorithm. So inflexibility and flexibility,  those two ideas are huge when it comes to having an imagination, one that can be productive and can produce useful.

Ideas, right? And at the end of the day, even as an entrepreneur, I had noticed mom's falling off what I call the cliff. Okay, so the 1 thing that we can all do to figure out how to find some. Some, some air to breathe as moms working moms is take it onto ourselves, figure out for ourselves what we want and what we really, really need in terms of flexibility and in terms of using all the resources that we do have, which was something you mentioned in your journalism video, right?

What do you have and figuring out how to make lemon sorbet out of lemons. Right, right. Who doesn't like lemon sorbet?  Everybody. Everybody. And I want to ask you, too, as an entrepreneur, how do you set boundaries for yourself, like, so that you don't burn out? Like, because I, I know that a lot of us struggle with that because, like, I'll be like, scrolling  just to like, like, what's happening?

Is there something timely I need to. to figure out and, and I work, I have my own brand, but I'm working for other brands and all of this. So tell me how you have you, how you've managed that. Yeah, I think it's really about figuring out, okay, what is it that I want? Like, do I really want to display my family on Instagram?

Do I really want to build up engagement to a point where this weekend I'm going to be like in a coma on my bed? And, and totally wiped out, like, what do you want? Because here's the thing, the trend is right. So a lot of people talk about hustle culture. Don't do it. I gotta be honest. I don't know how to actually produce the Instagram results that are quote, unquote, necessary in order to get the reach that they say I should have.

But what I do know is early on in my career, I remember this was, yeah, 12 years ago. I was Exploring social media. I don't even remember if Instagram existed. The point is this, I was pushing out, let's say like one piece of content a day, which back then it was like, wow, I was a new mom. I had one boy, he was a baby and I didn't have like full time childcare.

Let me be clear, which I think makes a big difference. And I remember one person who now is a. Telling me, Melissa, you should go crazy on social media. You should just like kill it on social media. And I remember just thinking to myself, oh my God, I'm dying here as a new mom. I'm like not sleeping. I'm like barely learning how to nurse and now I'm supposed to go on social media.

More, this is before those scheduling tools, really. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm going to have to miss the boat. I have to miss the boat. And I'll be honest, I missed the boat. And am I taking full responsibility for having quote unquote missed the boat? I am. So for me, the way that I manage my boundaries is I have to play it in the moment.

What do I need right now? If my agenda. If my values, if my needs are like top to my priority list today, I have to pick them. Even if it's at the detriment, at the detriment of my business or at the detriment of what the other world says I should be focused on, because I can't make myself want something that someone else wants.

I can't do it. Yeah. I try. Trust me.  I can't. I love that, actually. I think that's, that's super, that's super important because I think I beat myself up, too, about missing that social media boat. Like, I was there, I was watching, but I was like, I can't, I couldn't do it. It didn't feel right for me. And now I feel like, in so many ways, I'm playing catch up, but also, I'm like, this is where I'm at.

Like, I'm just gonna be authentic, share what I want to share in the moment, and not really... Put too much into like a strategy because I'll, I'll die. That's not even a joke. We will actually die if we like, like, like a book marketing launch plan. Like this is like the verge of,  but you did it. You're doing it.

I did it and I'm doing it. And I'm so appreciative, Bethany. Like, I am so grateful to like all the mom authors that have come before me. I am. So, so, so grateful, Bethany.  I mean, I, something that I also like love to talk about is like this unified power of mothers. Like we don't realize how powerful we are as a collective.

So anytime I see a mom out there doing this, like I'm like, yes, let's do it. But how can I help you? What can we do? And we're going to get you on my podcast too. So that stay tuned for that. So this is not the end.

Welcome to episode 201!

On October 31, I am offering the Kindle version of my book Fertile Imagination: A Guide for Stretching Every Mom's Superpower for Maximum Impact for only 99 cents on Halloween. If you love a sale and want to be the first to be notified of when to shop, then sign up on www.fertileideas.com.

In this episode, for any mom who doesn't have time to read books, I will read to you what a mom in the thick of it with a toddler, a baby, limited childcare living as an expat and an online business has to say about the book, and what a great grandmother who has been visiting her grand-baby in the NICU for 110 days wanted to share with you too. In this episode, I will also share with you precisely for whom this book is for... strap on your seatbelt, get ready for a high-octane mini-episode because in 7 days, we're about to birth a book!

Say hi: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

About the book: A fertile imagination can cast a powerful and compelling vision that will drive you to turn it into your reality, even if it's never been imagined as possible for mothers before. In this book, I feature my insights along with those of 25 highly imaginative guests, culminating with the CEO of GivingTuesday, Asha Curran, as a case study of using a fertile imagination to its maximum.

To call "Fertile Imagination" a book is perhaps the wrong term to use. It's a call to action, encouraging us to break free from the self-imposed limitations we put on ourselves and seize the vast potential that lies beyond our current view. It's a roadmap for readers to reconnect with their inner creativity. It encourages us to think beyond what we've been conditioned to believe about our limitations, to overcome impostor syndrome, and to break free from feeling stuck. Needless to say, "Fertile Imagination" is a must-read for any mother who has ever asked herself, "What if I want more?". It's a testament to the fact that you can be an incredible parent and still pursue your dreams.

Jenna Davis, Founder of Life in Germany:

Fertile Imagination is a virtual powerhouse of real-life scenarios that will help any woman (Moms especially) navigate today's workplace. I wish I had been given this kind of access to smart women back in the 70s when I was raising my boys as a single mother.

Kathy Ryan, Retired Managing Director Global Operations Ogilvy Worldwide:

Hearing from moms like you has turned Fertile Imagination into a rally cry….a decisive call to action to let go of what’s stopping you and re-engage everything you’ve got to drive really change forward….and as I thought about this…I came up with this….this book is from my heart to you.

To the moms who were denied their right to mat leave
To the moms whose birth plans were ripped to shreds
To the moms who are still in the trenches pumping themselves with hormones to have a child
To the moms who have twins who were pushed to get c-sections
To the moms who wanted vbacs and were hijacked of their dream
To the moms who feed their babies formula and who are made to feel like shit for doing so
To the moms who have degrees up the wazoo and opted out to raise humans
To the moms who have ever felt insecure or no longer important in the eyes of society
To the moms who were treated inhumanely during the pandemic when childcare was off the table
To the moms who own patents
To the moms who are at the helm of leadership of world-class organizations
To the moms who rather climbs mountains than stay in the valley of hellish experiences on any given day
To the moms who can’t
To the moms who can
To the moms who were elected into government positions
To the moms who hold Emmys or Sundance awards
To the moms who built million or billion dollar brands while being a mom
To the moms who cared for a sick child or beat their own illnesses to continue being a mom
To the moms who are unafraid to get into colosseums as if they too were a gladiator
To the moms who mom alone
To the moms who have had enough
To the moms who want more
To the moms who have finally figured it out and want to get ready to take matters into their own hands

**I want to hear from you! I'll be on Instagram on 10/31 and if you are not yet following me there, then pause this episode and do that today. Do that now. https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

About Melissa

Melissa Llarena is an author, imagination coach, consultant, speaker, and contributor to ForbesWomen articles that have garnered 4 million + views. She is also the host of Unimaginable Wellness, the podcast for entrepreneurs, founders, and creators who are also moms. Featured guests include GaryVee and Beth Comstock. Melissa holds a psychology degree from New York University, an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a Transformational Coaching Academy certificate. She is training to become a meditation practitioner. Melissa lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three sons. Visit www.fertileideas.com.

Welcome to Episode 200, this HUGE announcement feels like the perfect culmination of the Unimaginable Wellness podcast. If you’d like to follow my book launch journey then let’s connect on Instagram too!  https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

This is what’s coming up on October 31, 2023 and what you can expect from my debut book….Fertile Imagination the link to sign-up today to be the first notified of when it goes on sale is www.fertileideas.com --- be sure to sign-up today to ensure you are the first to be notified about the discounted Kindle version sale on October 31. Fertile Imagination book kindle version available on October 31 for only 99 cents on that day open. Get on the list to not miss out!

Oh, I can’t wait….here goes nothing…

Welcome to the world my debut book, Fertile Imagination, a guide to stretching every mom's superpower for maximum impact. It's time for every mom, including you, to take your place on the world's stage. So how are you going to do this? You ask? Well, you're going to learn how to use one of the most versatile yet highly underutilized superpowers your fertile imagination.

What is a fertile imagination? It has the ability to cast a big vision even if it's never been done by mom before. My 25 most Imaginative podcast guests are going to teach you everything that we know on how to use it so that you can begin to put it to good use. So what will you learn in this book? Well, there's three stages to actually optimize your fertile imagination for maximum impact.

The first step is waking up your imagination. And we're going to start by helping you rebuild your self trust, helping you find the courage you need to start calling yourself a creative and learning where you're going to find that energy to actually make big changes in your life. The second stage is about playing with your imagination.

So you have permission to actually play weird as weird as you wish. And rather than trying to overcome impostor syndrome, you're going to start using it as an asset. The third stage is about stretching your imagination. So whether you want to lead a global movement and bring in 1. 5 billion of donations in one day, or impact a billion people over the course of your life.

This book has you covered, but if these goals sound too outlandish then don't worry because I will be right there by your side in the pages of the book and I'll help you reimagine how you can tailor them. The book's insights to the realities of mom life you and me with our reheated coffees. This book fertile imagination is my invitation to you. It's to reclaim this power and to no longer need anyone's validation or reassurance to step outside of your comfort zone. It's also an opportunity for you to go on a quest to rediscover your imagination. It's a resource that treats you like a smart cookie.

It's written by me, Melissa, a mom of three little boys, who after 12 years of motherhood and entrepreneurship has come to the realization that sometimes you have to make unreasonable requests just to get what you really, really want. This book is your jet engine and it includes my successes as well as my mistakes.

It kind of reads like a personal diary written by a mom who tells it like it is. So what is fertile imagination really about? It's about learning how to swim against the current. It's about going first and showing our kids that they too can live out their dreams, but not just because you told them so, but because mommy did it.

The book is called Fertile Imagination, a guide for stretching every mom's super powerful maximum impact. Get on the email list right now, www.fertileideas.com, grab a free chapter while you're at it. Because on October 31st, this book is going to be available in its Kindle format for only 99 cents for that one day only.

So I want to be sure that you get in on that deal. Thank you again and run to www.fertileideas. com. Signing off, Melissa Llarena

Do you know what YOUR "momscript" is? Are you simply following a script that has been handed down for generations? Or are you living your most authentic life, both at home and at work? If you're looking for a llittle help in this department, listen up!

In this episode of Lifeyness, host Sarah Clarke speaks with Melissa Llarena, author of the new book Fertile Imagination: A Guide for Stretching Every Mom’s Superpower for Maximum Impact.

Today we talk about how to be playful, imaginative, and successful, both in your career and in your family. Here are some key points:

• How Melissa worked to retain her pre-parent identity after having kids, playing a “mental game” to keep life feeling un-mom-like
• Melissa’s 3-step Imagination to Impact Method for rediscovering your sense of wonder and playfulness as a parent
• Ways moms can “wake up” their imagination again and rebuild trust in their creative side
• The power of play for bonding with your kids and unleashing the inner child in yourself
• Stretching your imagination to make a difference and share your vision with others
• Melissa’s outlook on learning from those outside the typical mom sphere to expand perspectives
• Overcoming “inherited motherhood scripts” that feel inauthentic to who you really are
• Embracing your quirks and giving yourself permission to explore weird ideas
• Finding fulfillment as a parent by nurturing your passions and gifts
• The influence moms can have on kids by pursuing their own creativity and purpose

Quotes:

“Your imagination does not like to be ignored, pushed down or said you're not cool.”

“There’s something to just finding that thing...that tickles you, whatever that means to you.”

“Why not give this a chance? What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? You’re gonna stub your toe ‘cause you were dancing like a wild person?”

"The more you [use your imagination], the better a mom you are."

Mentioned in this episode:

• Fertile Imagination by Melissa Llarena
• Unimaginable Wellness podcast
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Connect with Melissa:

Website: www.fertileideas.com

Instagram: @melissallarena

More about today's guest:

An online entrepreneur since 2011, Melissa Llarena launched her business in parallel to becoming a mom the first time around. One set of identical twins later, Melissa brings a decade of experience working for Fortune top-50 brands and over another decade as a solopreneur. She holds a psychology degree from New York University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a Transformational Coaching Academy certificate based on Tony Robbins’s principles and Landmark Education insights. She’s becoming a meditation practitioner, enrolled in The Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. Her perspective has also been influenced by having lived for three years in Sydney, Australia, as an ex-pat family, and prior to motherhood, she worked and lived in NYC, London, and Paris. You can read her story “Imagine A Better Way” (Woodhall Press, 2023) in the anthology Fast Fallen Women. Melissa currently lives in Austin, Texas. 

Visit www.fertileideas.comfor resources (including a free book chapter) and speaking opportunities.   

 

 

Music Credit: William Claeson, "Song for a New Beginning"

Are we connected on Instagram yet? Say hi over here: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Welcome to episode 199. If you've ever tried to eat more healthy than perhaps your parents or than might be common in cultural dishes, then this is the conversation for you. I would say that this conversation with Dr. Sabrina Falquier is extremely important as many of us are making different choices than our parents when it comes to nutrition and wellness. In my case, my dishes look unlike those of my grandmothers who ate white rice and wouldn’t ever think about adding chia seeds to their beans! And this is why this chat is really relevant because she brings such a wonderful perspective being a physician and a mom and someone who was born and raised in Mexico. In this conversation, we spoke about several things, whether it was the choices that doctors have to make as it relates to patient visits and how short of a time they have to share their wisdom on food. As well as some of the reasons why Dr. Sabrina decided to learn more about health and nutrition even after already becoming a full-fledged doctor to how do you retain your cultural roots while going on a new eating and wellness journey that might look nothing like the food you grew up on or will find during this holiday season.

 

Tune into this one if wellness and health is important to you. and your family. Share this with other moms who want to pass on their culture yet do so with healthier recipe edits in mind.

 

About Dr. Sabrina

 

SABRINA FALQUIER, MD, CCMS, DipABLM - To begin, Dr. Falquier (Fall-Key-Ay) loves delicious food. She is a board certified internal medicine, culinary medicine and lifestyle medicine physician. She is bilingual and multicultural, born and raised in Mexico City to Swiss and American parents. This unique multilingual and multicultural perspective has shaped her work tremendously, as she has seen and experienced that our unique backgrounds, culture, taste, cultural experiences and historic expectations shape our health tremendously. Dr. Falquier worked as a primary care doctor for a prestigious multi-specialty group in San Diego, California, for over 15 years, in 2020 founded Sensations Salud, which focuses on awakening the senses around ingredient acquisition and food preparation while empowering people to better health through nutritional knowledge and culinary literacy by way of culinary medicine education and consulting. She is the host of Doctors+ podcast, is the chair of the board of Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center and the chair of the Culinary Medicine Specialist Board. She is also clinical professor at UC San Diego Health Sciences and adjunct professor at Bastyr University. Dr. Falquier promotes culinary medicine throughout San Diego and internationally in a variety of ways and to varied age groups and audiences. Her work can be seen through the powerful documentary: The Kitchenistas. She has been interviewed regarding food and health by media outlets including the Washington Post, The Union Tribune, Edible San Diego, San Diego Magazine, CBS news, and TeleMundo. Additionally, she was recognized yearly, from 2009-2020, as one of San Diego’s Top Doctors. For more information, please visit her website, or follow along @SensationsSalud on social media.

Resources

Podcast: Doctors+   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/doctors/id1459044040

Website: https://www.sensationssalud.com/

Documentary: The Kitchenistas Movie: https://thekitchenistasmovie.org/

LinkedIn- personal : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrinafalquier/

on social media - all platforms are SensationsSalud

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sensationssalud/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sensationssalud

LinkedIn - SSalud: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sensationssalud/?viewAsMember=true

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOZe0bOAVqDDWHHbaeh3Irw

 

Fertile Imagination – www.fertileideas.com

This episode is brought to you by Fertile Imagination, a guide for moms on how to use their imagination to achieve their goals. In my book, I share a three-part method for waking up your imagination and stretching it to its full potential.

Book launch sale – www.fertilieideas.com

Fertile Imagination is coming out on October 31st. For one day only on Amazon, you can grab a Kindle copy for only 99 cents (full price is 6.99). This is a great way to show yourself and your family that you're committed to imagining bigger. Go to fertileideas.com to get on the list and be the first to know when the sale begins.

Free five-day challenge – www.fertileideas.com

For more information about my book, visit fertileideas.com. You can also participate in a free five-day imagination to impact challenge, where you can co-create a business idea with your child. This is a great way to bond with your child and help them imagine bigger for themselves.

Free chapter and quiz – www.fertileideas.com

You can also download a free chapter of my book or take a quiz to see if your business is stagnant.

The ideas expressed during this chat are:

• ·       Why did Dr. Sabrina pursue further education in nutrition and wellness after becoming a physician?
• ·       How did Dr. Sabrina make big changes as a mom, especially when her kids were little?
• ·       What was it like to be a practicing physician without a lot of time to talk about nutrition with patients?
• ·       How do we change behaviors instead of taking pills?
• ·       Does eating healthy have to mean eating boiled broccoli?
• ·       How do we determine what's important to us and retain our ability to control our food intake? What motivates us personally?
• ·       Instead of restricting foods, what about adding nutrient-dense foods instead?
• ·       How can we eat family holiday meals without feeling left out?
• ·       How do we navigate cultural traditions and healthy foods when they clash?
• ·       How do we navigate Latino foods and family dynamics?
• ·       How can we use spices to retain the spirit of cultural dishes while making them healthier?
• ·       If we've stocked our cupboards with foods we know we want to change, should we eat them or toss them?
• ·       How can we find ways to move without joining a gym? How can we move in a way that's sustainable?
• ·       What can we do if we want to change our eating habits but no one else in our home does?
• ·       What are some clear steps people can take now that they know more about wellness and healthy foods?

Three big takeaways are:

1. Find what motivates or inspires you to change your eating and movement habits. What is your long-term goal?

2. You can still respect your cultural food traditions, but it is helpful to eat healthier most of the time (80%) if that is important to you for your health and well-being.

3. Remember that you don't live alone. You may want to pack your own cupboards with healthy foods, but other people in your household may have different taste buds and nutritional needs. Find a way to live together with respect for everyone's choices.

Conclusion

I am so grateful that you're listening to this conversation between two Latinas and it's actually, you know, Latinx Heritage Month in the U. S. And I think it means something when you hear two people sharing their expertise using a mic.

 

There's something to be said about. Participating in this conversation as a listener and someone who's going to take action on the wisdom that we bring to the table. So I want to honor you for actually supporting Latinx Heritage Month, even though you might not have even realized it by listening to this conversation.

 

And if you enjoyed this conversation, share it with one to two mom friends, one to two mom friends. Go ahead and share it in a WhatsApp group from classroom of moms or share it on Facebook amongst your mom's friends in a Facebook group to moms. That would help me out so much. Thank you again. And again, the book comes out October 31st, check it out, fertile ideas.com. You'll get a free chapter. If you go to the website, you could take the quiz. If that's where you are in your business, or you can actually go on the challenge, the five-day co-ideation challenge, a business idea with your child challenge. It's for someone that is entrepreneurial and wants to bring their kids along for the journey.

• One decision can change your life entirely.
• Melissa shares an anecdote from her book, Fertile Imagination, about her mom's one turning point decision moment back in the 60s.
• Melissa leads a 10-minute meditation to help you build a greater awareness of your body sensations.
• Melissa talks about the decision to raise bilingual third generation Latinos.

Excerpt from Melissa's book: Fertile Imagination: A Guide for Every Mom's Superpower for Creating Maximum Impact - https://www.melissallarena.com/waitlist/

The wrong script for you can hold you back. My Puerto Rican grandmother, who finished school after the third grade, got impatient with my mom back in the ’60s. One of three girls, my mom attended a community college to earn her associate’s degree. No other daughter went that far. My grandmother once told my mom, that’s enough school! She saw school as a waste of time for a girl. Decades later, my mom enrolled in college because she really wanted to earn a bachelor’s. The problem was that my mom was working full-time, I was born, and she had to complete all of her domestic duties for my father. No adjustments would be made to her script because my mom was carrying a full load of classes. My mom’s anxiety levels, due to her duties of being the primary caregiver as a wife and mom on top of her studies, led her to quit. Imagine if my mom, before she met my dad or had me, could have called BS on her own mother? Lashing out at your mom in a Puerto Rican household in my mom’s experience could result in a black eye so bottling up disappointments was often a better option. The baby step to changing a script that doesn’t feel true to you is in asking yourself the question: Is that behavior or expectation right for ME?

Melissa's story about raising bilingual third generation Latinos:

For me, I was told by my mom that my kids should be spoken to in Spanish. So that is one generation of moms telling me another generation of moms. Meanwhile, my grandmother would only talk to me in Spanish. Let's be clear. She understood every single word in English. And I knew that she could understand what I was saying, but it was like she'd be unresponsive if I opened my mouth and said anything in English. So this idea that you have to know Spanish was ingrained in me and frankly it's been a struggle. And it's this decision that I have had to really think to myself, okay, like, am I doing this for myself or am I doing this for my mom or am I doing this for my grandmother, right? These decisions are the ones that can change the trajectory of my kids' lives.  My advise is to check-in that its a fight for going into because YOU would want the outcome. Check-in as I mention in my book that it's not just a "mom script" that's been handled down to you. Or a glass-cultural ceiling you were meant to shatter?

*Update: the 21-day challenge will now be the 5-day challenge to ensure you complete the experience along with your school-age child.

Get on the list while it's free: https://www.melissallarena.com/fertileideas

The meditation:

Close your eyes and take a deep breath in through your nose. As you exhale, let go of any tension you're holding in your body.

Now, bring your awareness to your feet. Notice the sensations you feel in your feet. Are they warm or cold? Do they feel heavy or light?

Slowly bring your awareness up your legs, to your knees, your thighs, your hips. Notice the sensations you feel in these areas.

Continue to bring your awareness up your body, to your torso, your chest, your shoulders, your neck, and your head. Notice the sensations you feel in these areas.

Now, bring your awareness to your breath. Notice the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe in and out.

Continue to breathe deeply and slowly, paying attention to the sensations in your body and your breath.

When you're ready, open your eyes and bring your awareness back to the room.

Takeaway:

• The decisions you make can have a big impact on your life.
• It's important to be aware of your body sensations and what they're telling you.
• You can use meditation to build a greater awareness of your body sensations.
• Raising bilingual children is a decision that should be made for the right reasons.