Mom Founder Imagination Hub

Did you ever hear your name during Romper Room? Do you remember that 80s TV show when the host would look through a mirror and say a bunch of names? Well, I may have said your name during this podcast episode. Listen for it. Also exciting about this episode is that I read a snippet of my book for moms who want their imagination, playful, and all-around fun selves back. In this podcast episode, I also shared details about where you can instantly download your very own copy of one of my favorite chapters of my upcoming book.

Just visit www.melissallarena.com/waitlist for your free book chapter! In it, I share with you the value I gained and you can too from stepping outside of your comfort zone to learn how to play again. Hint: if you feel as if you have lost that cheerful, free, and fun sense of yourself since motherhood then in this chapter you will read the exact steps you can take in the next 7 days to get her back!

Have feedback or want to become an early reader? Then send me a note. I am seeking 50 - mamas to become my beta readers by October 30th. Join me by sending me a note to melissa [@] melissallarena.com if you want to be part of my beta reader collective. This is a non-fiction book for moms who believe in personal growth. Imagine, incorporating the exercises and doing the reflection questions that have transformed the lives of my podcast guests and my own too for the better. What if you end up transforming how you see your potential and purpose? All of this is available as a beta reader and for free. Just email me and I'll share the details.

Beta Readers also get perks beyond reading the book in advance. You'll be mentioned in the book. You'll get stickers. You'll get free meditations too designed by this mama of three boys. Don't we all need to catch our breath once in a while? Join me, ladies, this is a movement to help us all find the courage and energy to rewrite the scripts we have inherited about motherhood and make it our own.

Grab the whole chapter here: www.melissallarena.com/waitlist

P.S. The snippet I decided to read is transcribed below. It's a draft. Please do not copy any portion.

Improvisation, puppetry, acting, all those things that I learned in my acting courses we have innately in us when we're young. And then slowly, it just is dragged out of us, and we just become who we are. And then somewhere down the line, we go, oh, man, we used to run around and play and do things for fun.

So Chris Thomas Hayes (a former podcast guest who is a puppeteer for Sesame Street) is telling us, although he has a script for guidance, to create the character of Hoots he still needs to tap into a younger more playful version of himself to ensure the way he performs Hoots is relevant to his viewers. That sense of playfulness and its loss is particularly relevant for moms. We get so caught up in the stress of day-to-day life that we forget to just have fun. I’d say my personal definition of “playing” boils down to letting our kids lead the way during any activity or your inner little girl. When was the last time you let go of orchestrating a moment and lost track of time? Chances are that was the last time you played. We also don’t always see the benefits of playing with our kids. Like I have to think about adding play with my children to my list. Meanwhile, my husband plays this role of fellow playmate as one he was made for. Unlike me, my husband walks in the door and doesn’t scour the space for things to pick-up and clean; he looks for our chess set to play chess (and aims to beat) our eldest son. I think this is about letting ourselves get swept away in play too. It is important not to lose sight of your sense of fun.

Have you ever considered enrolling in an acting class or dabbled in any performance arts as a way of thinking of yourself as a different character? When I took my client’s advice about learning how to improvise and feel comfortable standing on a stage talking about myself, I enrolled in a course with Adam Wade. Adam has won The Moth’s StorySlam, twenty-times; he is an expert in personal storytelling. The course was immersive and personally challenging. It was out of character for me to do anything like this and it turned out I was the only mom of young kids in class. The schlep from New Canaan, Connecticut to Korea town, NYC every Sunday afternoon was a pain, but worth it.

The class culminated in each of us telling a brief story, on stage, in front of our peers, friends, and families. I wish I would have been able to hide behind a puppet like Chris. My performance involved a lot of preparation. In the same spirit of getting ready to play a puppet, I wanted to tell the story of who I was before I became a mom. To be authentic I had to go back to when I was studying and working in France during...

In this week’s episode, you are about to go behind the scenes of my podcast relaunch journey. I want to reveal my personal reasons for pivoting from entrepreneurship to wellness. Today, I will invite you to be part of my creative process. I'll ask you to send me your thoughts on 3 important questions. My aim is to ensure the next iteration of this podcast will be valuable and part of your weekly routine going forward. Oh, and stay tuned until the end, because I will be doing something special for those moms who do answer those 3 questions before the end of October 14th.

But first, in 2017, I launched An Interview with Melissa Llarena out of a dare. One night I was cooking rice and beans, as many other Latina moms would do, when suddenly and excitingly my husband had an idea. He dared me to invite GaryVee and James Altucher to my podcast but first to launch a podcast. I'm grateful. I achieved that dare.

Other things also came from my 140+ podcast episodes, I: overcame familiar mom feelings of imposter syndrome figured out that I can bring my own value to conversations even with goddess-like Suzy Batiz the inventor of Poo~Pourri mastered the art of organizing my recordings in between childcare snafus the whole journey has taught me a lot about how big I was or wasn’t playing it also felt good, really good to always have a fun, and daring conversation up my sleeves amongst my mom friends or friends in conventional careers frankly, doing this podcast, got me out of my mom brain and that felt good

Then after 140 episodes or so I started to see how far a podcast that began as a dare could get. Thus far, fueled by a dare, I've been able to garner about 15K downloads. This may sound wonderful. However, through the years I'd hear of some getting 10K downloads in their first few months.

So at this point, I decided to look at the numbers more seriously, and here is what I uncovered:

people were listening but I started to feel like it was a one-way conversation (which I take total ownership as my episodes started to get long) guests were coming but their followers were not sticking around after one episode (I’ll admit it may have been because my guest list start feeling unpredictable) meanwhile, marketing was happening but I was exhausted and my recent relocation from Australia back to the USA was a moment where I felt like I bit off more than I could chew

Now, I have my MBA. I saw the stats but my ego just kept me going. I wasn’t asking my listeners for feedback. I was just producing content and not really knowing WHY the numbers were not going up.

Then one of my sons asked me a question

Noah asked me: mommy, why are you doing a podcast if you are not getting paid for it?

All the data in the world could have told me to stop podcasting or pour more resources into marketing it or evolving the theme to something more niche.

But it was Noah my 8-year-old who led me here to pivot my podcast significantly.

Noah got me to be DONE with listening to my ego.

I contemplate for enough time. I was falling into a trap. I was going after fancy schmancy people because I’m scared that I won’t be fancy schmancy like them if we aren’t in the same orbits. Who would I be without them? Am I enough without their company? Noah got me to think about this thought very deeply.

This is why I’ve set out to do something very different. Very aligned. And very raw. And this is where you come in so please let me what you think. I’ll share how in a moment.

I want to reshape this podcast to address one very urgent question as there is an influx of moms pursuing self-employment right now.

Key Question: What ancient or modern wellness practices can entrepreneurial moms use to achieve the kind of unimaginable wellness that can truly unlock their greatest creative potential?

This question has nothing to do with a dare. I’ll tell you where this question comes from:

I was raised by a single mom with Manic Depression. I have only known my mom with her illness since 1979. Back then, mental health was a family secret. Yet, seeing her unable to accomplish her grandiose ambitions fueled me to pursue (and achieve some of my own). You can say building my own business and being a mom these last 11 years is evidence that there could be a silver lining when moms think extraordinary thoughts and have solid wellness practices to bubblewrap their sanity. All of this to say: I stand for resilience and creativity and I'd love to share my wisdom along with the wisdom of experts with my fellow moms who have big dreams yet might be neglecting their needs. I can attest to it that building a business as well as a family is innately a contact sport. Wellness is what can help entrepreneurs get back up. For moms, we must get back up. Personally, my mom never quite got there.

*****SHORT SURVEY FOR PODCAST PIVOT*****

So this is where you ...

Think about what 2022 could look like for you. What does it take for you to make 2022 amazing? Imagine using your capabilities and resources as an adult and pairing those up with the confidence, resilience, curiosity, and energy you had as a kid. During a coaching engagement, a client asked me something that illustrates how we might be keeping ourselves stuck by relying purely on thinking like an adult.

In this episode, I’m doing a 2021 wrap-up and sharing with you some of my upcoming guests in 2022. Specifically, I’m giving you a sneak preview of next week's episode which features a Sesame Street puppeteer who offers some words of wisdom about reconnecting with our inner child being the key to harnessing our imagination. There's no better way to approach 2022 than with oodles of imagination for you to dream bigger.

My goal for this podcast is to bring you world-class thought leaders across disciplines from around the world who courageously and creatively went after their curiosities until they felt ready. Hopefully, you have drawn some inspiration from this podcast over the past year. I’m passionate about helping you believe in yourself enough – to stand up for yourself, to invest in yourself, and to show up as yourself to the world. My role is to scour the earth for those who could inspire us all to be our authentic selves.

If you want to feel better, expansive, and unlimited like your inner child would want you to feel, I would love to see you join my free master class by simply going to www.melissallarena.com/limits. If you could combine your kid-like qualities and your capabilities and resources as an adult, then you will realize how limitless your potential is.

It takes rethinking and reimagining what's possible for you and I want you to have everything you need so you can enter 2022 with eyes wide open!

Highlights

Creativity: Most successful people have a playful spirit. They’re creative and curious and they have this sense of hope that we can all stand to learn from.

Impact: Do you want to continue following the expectations of what you should be doing as a responsible, practical adult or follow what you really want to do as a human and make a huge impact on this world?

Limitations: Before you start thinking about your 2022 resolutions and goals, you need to know what you're up against. What's the traditional thinking around what's possible for you and what's unavailable to you?

Dreams: Many individuals have multiple degrees and so many successes, or they may have some big brands on their resumes, but they don't have the energy to apply their effort towards their dreams.

Insecurities: People who look like they are totally put together can absolutely also feel like they either don't belong, or they don't have a right to do whatever it is that they want to accomplish.

Reconnection: Know what you've been taught about what it’s like to be an adult and what people expect of you that you may not agree with. Then tap into reconnecting with your inner child, which you can do almost on-demand, to help you get out of the rut.

Courage: A lot of our beliefs are worth getting rid of in 2022. Don't be afraid to swap them, question them, or maybe introduce brand new ways of thinking and rehearsing them so that this way your actions don't feel so hard in 2022.

Awareness: Be fully present, pouring your heart, your soul, and everything into any activity in which you are doing in the present moment.

Clarity: Imagine going to a party and not feeling bad or awkward about deciding not to eat something the host made because you just want to love yourself by losing some weight. There are a lot of incongruencies between what you want in 2022 and what you think you should go for or be grateful for. Therefore, having clarity is essential.

Momentum: Our inner child often gives us a sense of what we really want. And once you're able to break free from your limitations and reconnect with your inner child, you can move so fast.

Curiosity: Kids don't have the burden of some past trauma. They have just this free and clear approach to what they want. And so, there are a lot of things that we can learn from them.

Ageless: Once you are happier, everyone else around you will be happier. Having the spirit of a child or reconnecting with your inner child is ageless.

Links to continue to learn from:

About Melissa Llarena

Melissa brings a makerspace mindset that is laser-focused on creatively making space for courage for those with a big message to share with the world. A makerspace is a collaborative workspace with very different tools meant for making things fueled by active imaginations. In a makerspace, the goal is to inspire new creations. In Melissa’s program called Courage Makerspace TM we are making space for courage in your dail...