EP 252: Moms Helping Moms Make a Difference & Money with Laura Mayes

I am currently snuggled up in bed listening to the rain steadily coming down with no plans to do much more than take a walk this afternoon in the big trees.

January is the time I spend thinking and dreaming about what I could do in the new year. I am in no rush. These questions require some breathing space.

Will my travels require a passport? Will I need a new swimsuit and maybe some resort wear? What kind of sun hat will make me want to wear it? What kind of outfits will I need in each season?

I wonder if I will find a new band to obsess over this year… How can I use technology to make my life simpler? What can I automate, delegate or eliminate from my life?

Who do I want to interview for the podcast? What books do I want to read? What kind of civic engagement do I want to participate in?

Who will I spend more time with this year? What do I want to learn? Is this the year I meet someone whose work has changed my life?

No need for a new me just because it is a new year. My plans are to take it slow and stay steady all year.

What are your thoughts on January?

In this week’s podcast episode I am sharing my interview with Laura Mayes. 

Laura Mayes is an Emmy-winning writer, senior director of Unlocking Us with Brené Brown and the Dare to Lead podcast, VP of Influencer Programming and Relations Everyday Health Group's Pregnancy & Parenting division, home to Mom 2.0, What to Expect and BabyCenter, a co-founder of the Mom 2.0 and the Mom 2.0 Summit, and a partner in Altitude Summit.

Over the last 25 years, she has created, developed and produced live events and shows, including industry conferences, brand events, book and product launches, podcasts, awards shows, the curation of national art exhibits and nationwide programs for women in media.

Not going to lie, I tried really hard not to fangirl over Laura during this interview because she is The Coolest. She’s one of the original women who made a name for herself on the Internet through early blogging.

I have been fascinated with that group of women since I first learned about them in 2010. Absolute pioneers in new technology, influencer marketing and making a name for oneself as a woman on the internet.

Plus, she’s Sister Brené’s pal and podcast producer. 🤯🤩 Don’t worry, I think I kept it together when I inevitably brought up BB in our conversation. Then she told me Brené Brown was going to be the keynote speaker at Mom2 and I had a moment. Like a pause. A be cool, but you might have yelped a little bit moment.

If you would like to join me at Mom 2 AKA  the BEST Momcation in Orlando in April use my link for a discount on your conference registration use my link for a discount on your conference registration.

Show links:

• Laura's Instagram
• Thrive in '25

Transcript

[00:00:00] 100 percent guilt free self care with Tammy Hackbar, the podcast here to remind you that you matter too. Happy holiday season, my friend. The new year is upon us and I want to share something I created just for you. Thrive in 2025, a free class to help create your plan to get beyond just surviving. Head on over to the show notes to register now.

[00:00:29] And now, on to today's show. Okay, everyone. I have to tell you something. I have been practicing a lot of follow up and how I've been doing that is every time I see who you're about to meet, I'm like, Hey, do you want to be on my podcast? And I send her messages and we're finally doing it and I cannot be happier.

[00:00:49] Hi Laura Mays. How are you? Hey, hi. It's been a long time coming. I know. And you know what? The timing works out. It's perfect. So for those of [00:01:00] our listeners who have not yet. Happy pleasure. Who are you? And what do you do in the world? Right, friends. I'm Laura Mays. I am a producer. I am a conversation starter and curator.

[00:01:16] And I don't know. That's kind of that. That's not a good answer. I should have a better log line. But yeah, I wear a couple of different hats. I'm a co founder of Mom 2. 0 and the Mom 2. 0 Summit along with Carrie Puccini. I direct and produce Renée Brown's Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts. And I have a couple of other producing projects, but most of all, it's like, I work to, I feel like my life's work is to help facilitate and tell stories and that are not often told, like, for underserved, underrepresented individuals.

[00:01:58] Yeah, that's kind [00:02:00] of, it takes a lot of different forms, but I create spaces for conversations, live events, and happenings. Okay, so you said two things that I think need to be really underlined, and that is, That you have been involved in mom too. And I am gone to several. I've been a speaker. I have met people that I collaborated with.

[00:02:29] I've had mind blowing education at this conference. Can you tell us more? Cause most of the listeners here are women. What is mom to summit? What, like who goes, why would somebody want to go? Cause I keep saying everyone has to go and I've got a lot of people do it, but. Why did you start it? Like, what's the underlying reason it even exists?

[00:02:53] Yeah, it's a great question. We started it, Terry Pacini and I started this conference, [00:03:00] or this conversation, really, 17 years ago, and we're about to have our 16th conference next, next April, April 3rd through 5th in Orlando, Florida. And we do it at a different location every year. We've been around the U S mostly South and Southern ish states or Southern California be just because of the time of the year, spring can be a little.

[00:03:27] Couldn't get cold, different places still. And we do a lot outdoors, but it is, we really started it to be a conversation between moms, marketers, and media. And we started it. To create a leader's conference for an industry that didn't exist yet. My background is in public relations and media. And it started for me, all of this started for me in 2005 when I had my son, I have one child.

[00:03:57] He is now 19, but he [00:04:00] was, when he was just born, I. Was given a very generous maternity leave. I was running a PR agency inside of an ad, a marketing advertising agency, which was run by the bigger agency run by a woman and mother. And she gave very generous, like six month maternity leaves. And so I had been working since I was, you know, 14 years old.

[00:04:20] So I'd never had six months off before. And not that it's off cause like you're having a new baby and whatever, but it's just the architecture of my day changed radically overnight. Right. And I also happen to have a very delightful, easy baby, which I know is a blessing and, you know, and an embarrassment of riches in that sense that he slept when he was supposed to sleep.

[00:04:46] And so I had some downtime and I was bored. Googling at that point, like how did best practices for diaper changes or whatever, you know, you're Googling, you're like, how do I get them to, what if [00:05:00] they're running fever? What if, whatever, you know, whatever you're Googling when you're a brand new mom and don't know anything, excuse me.

[00:05:06] And I found mom blogs in the process, because especially at that time with the Google juice and everything else, mom blogs were rising straight to the top. There were not that many of them. In 2005, and the only way there was no social media, truly, I mean, there was like MySpace, I think, and Facebook, if you were on a college campus, but there was nothing else.

[00:05:28] There was no Twitter. There was no anything. Right. It's like, it's the before times. It's like when we were searching, you're like, do I go to the library? Do I call my pediatrician? You're like, but there is a Google. Let's chug Google. Let's stop your Google, say. Yeah. Yeah. You have your, have you got your new bestie?

[00:05:46] Right. Exactly. You have your what she was when you're expecting book. That was great. But if there's something else that you wanted to find quickly, Google was number one and it would you take you to these mom blogs. And then you could leave comments, [00:06:00] people would respond, other moms would respond, it was this currency, this comment currency that you could find other people, they would leave comments, you'd click and find their mom blog, get their information, you really got to actually, quote unquote, know people on the internet for the first time and through blog comments, truly, which is, I know it's crazy, but You know, people, moms find a way.

[00:06:24] So, and so that was emerging. Carrie was in project management and for a company and. She had started sort of a Facebook for moms called op mom. That was sort of a resource sharing site. And so we got to, she kind of came at it from like an operational and also like marketing perspective. And I came up from like a mom and media perspective.

[00:06:52] And so we kind of came together to create this conversation between moms, marketers, and media that we just didn't feel like was happening. [00:07:00] Although we're seeing like this emergence of this incredible sacred space. That then marketers would enter into in weird ways. And like, if you're entering a sacred space, you have to be mindful about how you enter a sacred space.

[00:07:13] And so some were doing it great and some were not, and media, you know, this, it was called quote unquote new media at the time. And so this emer, emerging media for the first time, like traditional media was like, we don't even know what to do with this. This is cuckoo. Like the, and, oh, that's just a little mom project.

[00:07:31] It was just very, very. Very pooh poohed. Like, yeah, that's a whole thing. Blogs at the time, they were like, they were like sports blogs and political blogs and IT blogs and mom blogs and the media kind of labeled media and other primarily male blogging Leaders like named this ma named the [00:08:00] mommy. Blogs is like really a pejorative term, meaning hundred percent personally pejorative.

[00:08:05] And so it was just sort of this dismissed group that was really doing these incredibly powerful and subversive things like telling, telling a story that had never been told for the first time, documenting, and then the first time having the power to publish like. You were a human at home that had great ideas and you wanted to put them out there.

[00:08:31] You put them out there and push publish and you were published and you had readers and it was just, it was the democratization using of media, using the technology. Totally. It was. fascinating to rip through. Right, and now at the beginning I was like, who are these people? What's happening? Right, and now I mean, there's prolification the whole thing everywhere.

[00:08:56] So it's hard to even imagine, like, I try to explain to my son and he just [00:09:00] doesn't get it, because everything is so. Available and on demand and right there and, and just like we walk around with the world in our, you know, in glowing rectangles in our pockets and it, it just wasn't the case then and just that, that radical act of pushing publish and getting a story out there that hadn't been told was, and mom's going, this is really hard.

[00:09:23] And this is really, you know, real and just like putting real stories out there for the really, truly the first time that wasn't gate knowing was gatekeeping what was going out there. There was no laugh track. There was no produced element of it. It was just raw stories that didn't have to go through a publishing agent or channel or whatever.

[00:09:44] And it was just, it just was for the first time, which is to have a six month or to have a six month lead time to be in a print magazine. Exactly. With like, And you're like, No, I'm feeling this thing today and I hit publish today and people around the world can [00:10:00] access that in real time. And I think that's because of the immediacy and the intimacy of the stories.

[00:10:07] They really did catch on fast with other people who are doing it. Yeah, absolutely. It was, you know, truth. It was truth serum. It was fantastic. It was a breath of fresh air. Good and bad to read, like, wow, and to learn about other people's experiences, other people's lived experiences in a different state than you're in, a different race than you have, a different religion that you have.

[00:10:27] And just to, like, hear their stories and believe their stories and experience them in something that you may not have experienced before. You haven't, may haven't read before, you haven't interacted with before. It's not in your town. It's not at your church. It's not at your mom's group or whatever.

[00:10:43] You've just got a larger representation of. Real mom's true stories all of a sudden. So, uh, it's super sacred. It's super powerful. And this group truly gave birth to the influencer movement, which is now a [00:11:00] multi billion dollar industry. But at the time, there were like 200 of them and they all knew each other.

[00:11:06] Can I, can we name some names? Sure. I see. Okay. So Asha Dorothest. Of course. Whirl. So Sarah, Sarah James. Sarah James. Yeah. Kristen Howerton. Absolutely. Christine Ko. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's all these people that, because I didn't read my first blog until 2009 because I did a, I was a teacher during this time that you're talking about.

[00:11:32] I didn't have kids yet, but I did a yoga teacher training and the first day of training, my teacher said, Oh, we're going to start blogs and we're going to do this. And I was like. That sounds terrific. I don't know what you're saying, but what were you talking about? And she explained it. And I literally, I hit publish within 24 hours and that started, I started meeting people around the world, talking about yoga, talking about not [00:12:00] hustling for our worthiness.

[00:12:01] There's my first Bernie will drop in talking about slowing down, talking about taking breaks and living with the seasons and under this whole thing under. Unsubscribing from hustle culture and capitalism at every cost. Yeah. Right. And I've been doing just that because what, I mean, that's what self care is, right, is like saying, yeah, I reject the overarching narrative that I am somehow either fundamentally broken because I need care.

[00:12:36] Or that I'm a selfish asshole because I need care and I'm taking it. It's like everything that I do has this political subversive message, which is like, no, no, we, we can all do this. In fact, it's imperative that we do. So you said something earlier about, okay, a, I just, so we're clear. I love Renee's podcast so much.

[00:12:57] They, they, [00:13:00] sometimes they actually bring tears to my eyes. I'm not going to lie because they're saying. They're so good. And that's why I'm continuing my, my parasocial relationship with her is because she's always whispering these funny stories in my ears. After the election, I did download, once again, Braving the Wilderness, uh, from the library and I listened to it in two days because I was like, you know what I need?

[00:13:25] I need to remember that being courageous and standing up for what's right, you will find your people and you will. It's hard. It's hard. It's lonely. It's rush and it's a hundred percent worth it. So you are like so amazing in that you're like you help people tell these stories, but you're also there from the beginning, which is completely bonkers because before you had your kid, this kind of media didn't exist.

[00:13:54] You have this baby, you have this time and then you're like, wow. But then you and Carrie put your heads [00:14:00] together. And so you said something about how marketers were entering a sacred space and. Not, not treating it that way. So meaning that they were like undercutting, because here's the thing, a lot of people have no idea how influencer marketing works.

[00:14:18] They have no idea how brand deals are made. And if, if you are somebody that's like, yeah, I've always wondered about that, guess what? Y'all. It's a real business. So all your favorite influencers that have cute outfits and the makeup and the, this and that companies are paying them in, in, in lieu of a lot of times, traditional advertising, they've reallocated their dollars to this, but you, so you and Carrie got together and you're like, No, we're going to create a space where we're going to come together.

[00:14:48] We're going to talk to each other so that we are working together to make this industry work for all of us. Like, so can you talk a little bit about the nuance of that? Yeah, [00:15:00] totally. I mean, going back to the Sacred Space and like naming, calling out some names and different people, like when I came in, the first Individuals that I found were like Alice Bradley, Eden Kennedy, Heather Armstrong, also known as Deuce, Maggie Mason, uh, Marie Drummond was one of the first people to ever leave a comment on the blog.

[00:15:22] And the Pioneer Woman. Pioneer Woman. Oh, Design Mom. Gabby Blair. Design Mom. She's an expert. Yeah. Karen Walrond. Yep. Jenny Lawson. And Brene Brown. And I lived in Houston at the time. Karen, Jenny, and Brené also did. Gabby and I started a, along with Lori Smithwaite, started, like, a little Dig for chicks called curtsy, if you remember dig back in the day, we started that curtsy to kind of have these stories raised to the top and along the, everyone was just kind of experimenting with their own [00:16:00] things and mom too came from that doing, you know, curtsy and, and, but the idea was like from my, my day job as a PR person and in working in a marketing firm.

[00:16:13] Um, And also as someone who, like, grew up in a small town in Texas, it, to your point and back to your question, what was very clear to me was that, you know, when you grew up in a small town, everyone knows everyone and everyone also knows, like, everyone's Parents and it's sort of like, we always had the joke that like, I couldn't say the F word or my dad would know by the time I got home.

[00:16:41] I mean, it just is so insular in that, especially like pre internet. I don't know what it's like now, but, but in the seventies and eighties, when I was growing up as a little kid, it, every, you knew you could just go to anyone's house and be like, Hey, can you take me home? Or can you call my mom? Or it just, it just, that is what it was.

[00:16:59] And so there's [00:17:00] accountability there. There's connection there. And. You bring up Braving the Wilderness. Brené writes in Braving the Wilderness about, she goes to my dad's funeral in a small town. And Reid talks about, yeah. It's hard for me to read Braving the Wilderness, to be honest with you. She sent me that part before it came out, and was just like, do I have your approval to do it?

[00:17:20] And I'm like, absolutely. You would love it. But it is that connection, is really what it is, that surpasses all, everything else. Like where, Which church you go to, what you believe, how you vote, whatever. It really doesn't matter. And I feel like. In the small town that was the mom blogging space at that point to get like loop it back to your question.

[00:17:46] There is that small town and if someone walks into a small town and just starts screaming about a product. Like Walmart, like I just remember like when Walmart was entering small towns and it was like [00:18:00] disruptive and everyone hated it and it was like very much a problem. Because they weren't working within the context of the town, and that's kind of how marketers were doing in like around 2000, 2005 to 2010 probably like right when you're even, you know, coming in.

[00:18:20] Our first mom two was in 2009, but especially like from 2005 to 2009, there was really a. Us and them kind of like no one really knew what was the, there were a few people don't get me wrong. I can name like exactly who they were probably who were coming in and entering into the community and doing it appropriately.

[00:18:42] But most people were just like coming in like they would come, like they would run an ad or whatever. And it's just like, stop yelling advertisements at me. And that's very jarring. Stop it. Yeah. No, that's not how we do that here. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, no, this is sacred space. You don't run [00:19:00] into a church and start peddling your wares.

[00:19:02] Although that's a whole different conversation that we won't get into on this call. I feel like, in theory, you, you enter a sacred space with reverence, and so, and with respect. And with listening ears and open, you know, open minds. And I, I feel like that that's, that's what really we try to do. And I, and, and all the, not that we know best, it's really just creating a space intentionally to be like, Hey, here's an intentional space for mom entrepreneurs, whether they be content creators.

[00:19:40] Or Etsy shop owners, or they run a little something and they're running their PTA, they're running their organization, they're producing a show, they're writing a book, they're whatever their entrepreneurial quip. passion quest is, their entrepreneurial pursuit, [00:20:00] their day job is, whatever that is, we're going to bring you guys come into a respect, a space where every is respecting everyone else's ideas and experience lived experience.

[00:20:11] And then we're going to bring in marketers who are doing the same and want to connect who are doing their day jobs and working to promote whatever they're looking to promote and how those they can connect in with this community. And where the synergies are and then you have media doing the same, whether they're media is now.

[00:20:33] I mean, they're, they've always been content creators. They just didn't call themselves that. But it's like bringing a journalistic truth telling approach to to the whole thing. Everyone needs each other. Like the media needs marketers and moms. Moms need media and marketers. Marketers need moms and media.

[00:20:50] So it's very much a three legged stool. And it's what we do is just to create intentional space and intentional time. [00:21:00] People, I mean, there's so much going on in the world and especially with these glowing rectangles in our pockets. It's so easy to get sucked in to all kinds of drama and distractions and whatever.

[00:21:13] For better or worse, like sometimes the distraction is a really good thing. But it's easy to get sucked into stuff that is not your True North star or your path or what's important. And so it's really a delightful thing for us to create. Intentional space that's away from home in a really lovely environment.

[00:21:34] Carrie is the best at create it, creating beautiful spaces and selecting beautiful spaces in places that like even Orlando sounds chaotic because of Disney and whatever, but where we are at this JW Marriott Grand Lakes is a beautiful resort that's away from everything. It's very quiet. There are beautiful lakes.

[00:21:59] They're [00:22:00] like nature trails and you just feel away. You create space for yourself to get away just a couple of days. Without the whole world's needing you for five seconds. And we take that very seriously. Like we are like, okay, we create space to take care of those that take care of everyone else all year long.

[00:22:23] That's one of the things. So I, my first conference was alt summit, which is run by design mom slash Gabrielle Blair. By the way, if you haven't read her books, everyone Google Gabrielle Blair. Learn how to ejaculate responsibly, and her new book, The Kids Are Alright, oh, it's so good. So good. She is so good.

[00:22:45] And if you're not following her on wherever she is on the internet, do, because she is such an incredible thought leader. I love her. But, you know, some pals from All Summer were like, you would really like The People at Mom too. And I was like, let me [00:23:00] check it out. And then I started bringing people, and you know what we call it now?

[00:23:03] We call it our mom cation. I love it. Like I have never seen some of my closest business pals anywhere except at either Alt Summit or Mom2. Yeah, we're sister conferences. We started at the same time when we were doing Curtsy. Gabby started Alt and I started Mom2. And so we are truly sister conferences. I freaking love Alt Summit.

[00:23:29] And I mean, it's super creative. Yeah. But one of the things I, I, I love about Mom too is not only the accommodations are top notch food so good. It's so dang good I hate is when you go somewhere and they don't feed you. Well, it sucks. But that is all Carrie patini She is the mouth. Well, you just give her a giant high five for me.

[00:23:56] It's so nice to go on a vacation [00:24:00] I mean, I'm legit working all day in that. I'm I'm learning. I'm meeting new people. I'm learning new skills I'm doing all the things I'm totally working and I'm being really well cared for at the same time. It's, it's, it is a five star, all the, it's a 10, 10 out of five stars.

[00:24:23] And I told you this before, I'm going to tell everybody else. One of the educational panels, somebody like literally made a throwaway comment, like just kind of an off the cuff comment. I took the advice and doubled my speaking income the next year. Oh my gosh, I love that. And I was like, you know what? And also, it's like, if you're like, Oh, I, but I, I'm not an influencer.

[00:24:48] I'm not that, I'm not either. I'm going because I want to talk to other speakers. I'm going because I want to learn from people on stage. So, you know, there's been so many really great conversations. Like, can you [00:25:00] remind me the name of the woman who works in a Oh, yes, I can. And I'm having a moment. I'm having, like, a senior moment right now.

[00:25:08] No, I'm having a moment, too. Her book is around here, but I just can't put my hands on it right this second. But it's that idea, like, we have conversations, like, there's been conversations about, like, screen time with real pediatricians. There was, we had a whistleblower at, I think, Instagram or Facebook, came and talked about, like, how social media can be really damaging to kids.

[00:25:33] And it was, like, There's so much to learn that's not even in your realm and I always, always feels like you have, you're like five steps ahead of everyone. So everyone's going to be talking about deep fakes and everyone's going to be talking about AI in a few years, but I'm like, Oh my God, I saw this.

[00:25:53] This woman, she was talking, and she, like, explained the whole thing, and my mind was completely blown. [00:26:00] I'm just gonna be real. I'm a super nerd. There's tons of authors there. I'm like, Oh my god, I'm sharing space with Jessica Laham. I'm like, oh my god, I'm with the people who are doing the things. Yeah, it's pretty great.

[00:26:14] And it's Lori Segal, who is the AI experts who spoke last year and who was talking about deep fakes and all the work that she's doing. She's in media. She was with CNN for a long time and she did, she was a tech reporter. And she has been in the room with everyone over the past 10, 12 years. And she's a really, really interesting, I'm going to actually pull, I'm trying to pull up what her, her organization is to give it a plug because she's doing really good work.

[00:26:45] It is, she's mostly human as former CNN, senior tech correspondent and reporter for 60 minutes. And she's interviewed every tech leader that you can think of, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, et cetera, et cetera. And she now runs this organization [00:27:00] called Mostly Human. about, and she has a book called Special Characters, which is really good.

[00:27:04] Um, anyway, just a little plug for her and the work that she's doing. She gets behind the scenes looking at the last decade in tech and what's coming next in the new AI era, and really is a kind of leading the charge into looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly on AI. Cause there's like some amazing things happening with AI, especially with.

[00:27:24] Healthcare and health related industries that's going to like expedite solutions for Alzheimer's and cancer and all kinds of things, but there's also quite a dark side that just like, Oh, that's so weird. That's so weird. There's like good and bad. But it's, but again, I feel like mom to summit does this remarkable job of bringing issues to light.

[00:27:51] I would have, I don't know if I would have ever gotten on the let's have a deep conversation about AI and how it affects everything. Yeah, if I [00:28:00] hadn't seen her speak. Hey, Laura. Yeah, we have a conference coming up in. April, do you have any, do you have any ideas of who people might be able to interact with there?

[00:28:13] There's some really good ones. You were talking about Frances Haugen earlier, who was like Time's person of the year, I think. She was the, the digital engineer and whistleblower and social media reformer. We've had so many, I can like get into so many different, you just go through our website mom2. com and see a lot of our speakers that we've had in the past.

[00:28:35] What we do try and thank you for, for feeling this because it, or I should say, thank you for expressing that you're feeling this because it's nice to hear because we really try to. You know, it's, it's hard to program a conference, you know, the internet changes and the world changes so much, you know, we're really living it right now, aren't we?

[00:28:58] That like every, [00:29:00] every day is a new headline kind of thing and so who knows what we're going to be talking about next April. And so as far as like anticipating that which we'll be talking about is always a challenge. So we really are trying to forward look. We do do a call for a call for. Speakers and topics to the community every, like, August, September for what they want to talk about next spring, because we kind of run the school year and this, you know, it's interesting the past.

[00:29:31] In 20, we're in 2024. I'm gonna work backwards. So in 2023, well, in 2022 we did, in the fall, we did a call for what they wanna talk about in 2023. And I always do a word cloud of like everything that comes in just to see trends. And that year, a lot of it was balance, wellness care, things like self care, things like that.

[00:29:57] And we had our events in [00:30:00] Scottsdale under some beautiful mountains, and we did talk a lot about emerging and rising and taking care and getting balance and. Mental load and a lot of things like that. Last year, a call in 2023 for 2024, the words that emerged were grow and growth. And we had, interestingly, I mean, it was like, you could see, really, like, people were really struggling coming out of the pandemic and still been.

[00:30:27] And then by the year passing, it's like, okay. We're ready. We're feeling a little more optimistic. We're feeling a little like we are sleeping through the night somewhat, you know, let's, let's try to grow. We're ready to like pivot and get out of this. So we were in Nashville this last year, which is one of the fastest growing cities, apt.

[00:30:46] And this next year, we're seeing a lot about the words that emerged this year were leadership and business. So I don't know totally what that means yet. Also, obviously, this question was [00:31:00] asked in August and September. So what are you seeing emerging? Definitely leadership is a consistent that like, what is leadership?

[00:31:08] What is there's power over power to power with? Brené talks a lot about those topics. And with her Dare to Lead, we do the Dare to Lead podcast. We talk a lot about different elements of leadership and even braving the wilderness. There's leadership in that for sure, for sure. It's really just how you move through the world and how you live your life and also how you take care of business.

[00:31:31] And so I think there is that connection there. So we're going to look a lot this year on leadership and on and taking care of business and what that means for you and your community and your world and that kind of thing. So I will let you know that we're delighted to have Shannon Watts. who is the founder of the largest grassroots group fighting gun violence in the United States and an author.

[00:31:58] She started Moms Demand Action, a [00:32:00] huge grassroots organization, and she has a book coming out in the spring and June called Fired Up, How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age. And leading the conversation in conversation with her will be Karen Walrons, who has a book who's just friends and she's an incredible author and speaker and photographer.

[00:32:22] And she has a book called The Lightmaker's Manifesto and another book called Raniate Rebellion. And I highly recommend the light. I was telling Timmy like the Lightmaker's Manifesto is the book I give. Every college graduate now it's an incredible path or I was I think I think of it as like a life call to action.

[00:32:42] How are you going to make your stamp on the world, while holding on to your humanity, your joy, your connection, your deep care. I would like to sit next to Karen. I don't [00:33:00] know if she seems cool at all. It's like, she's got all the words that you're like, yeah, I want some of that. I mean, it really is like a path forward.

[00:33:08] I think of like, if you want to make a, if you want to make a difference in the world, here's a path forward and it self care is a huge part of it. So anyway, they're going to have a conversation, a main stage conversation. On ignite your inner fire, leading with courage, joy and lasting impact. So I think we're all going to need that no matter.

[00:33:27] I mean, it's like kind of building the container for something like this and building the space for something like this to be able to Have that conversation and, and so whatever the details are of the conversation at that point, they can address those what's, you know, top of mind for people at that point.

[00:33:44] But generally speaking, having Shannon Watts there, she's, I think she's an incredible leader. I think she's done incredible things and she's risen to the occasion. Like she did not intend to start when she started, but she met the moment and was very, [00:34:00] gosh, what a strong human and what a smart. I was going to say, she is.

[00:34:05] I think she's honestly one of the leaders of our generation. And I think that history will look back at her and be like, dang, because, and I said this earlier before we started recording, I mean, I really consider Shannon and Karen both to be unflappable in that it's like same work, different opponent.

[00:34:29] Yeah. Like, yeah, like we have work to do. We're going to figure it out. We're going to roll up our sleeves. We're going to tap out when we need to, because we know other, because we, because we attract people who believe that they have agency, that they can make a difference in the world, that we can tap out temporarily because there's 40 people around us to pick up the slack and that we can tap back in and people.

[00:34:54] And the idea that, because I feel this from both of them is that [00:35:00] we're in it for the long haul. Right. And so we create. Uh, a safe container for everyone to be like, okay, gonna need a minute, gonna go take care of, go, go do a thing with my elderly parents for a couple of months, but the work doesn't end.

[00:35:18] Right. This just, it doesn't end and we don't have to work ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I will say like, yes and yes and knowing that we're not alone in knowing that we're part of a larger group and I can tell you, I have not like everything you just said. I have learned at the feet of black women, like 100 percent read the way from the very beginning.

[00:35:47] And I mean, they're there. Their time in America from the very beginning is just been based in leadership and resilience and joy. And I [00:36:00] mean, and just, you just, Do the next right thing, do the next right thing, do the next right thing. And so, and, and, you know, learning from Karen, learning from Shannon, learning from so many different people who are leaders in different ways.

[00:36:15] So I agree. I'm excited. I'm very excited. I was very delighted and tearful even. I mean, you're talking about Renee's work, producing it all the time. I'm, I, I, I tear up all the time while I'm listening to something 10 times over, you know, that sort of thing. And you're like, Oh, I got that one. That one really hit.

[00:36:35] Oh, look, it hit again and again and again, especially during the pandemic. I mean, gosh, what a time to, to be listening to things in a meditative way over and over again. And I, I need to take that practice into. Into these, into these times for sure. Anyway, so I'm delighted that we're all delighted that Shannon is going to be with us and that Karen and Shannon are going to be in a [00:37:00] conversation, but we have a very special person who's coming to open up our conference and it's Brene Brown, she's going to come.

[00:37:09] And we're so, I'm going to need a moment. I'm going to share air with Brene Brown. I'm going to try really hard not to make it fucking weird. Okay. Just going to, just so we're clear. Gonna try hard not to make it weird. Yeah, see? I'm gonna write a permission slip, put it in my pocket, and be like, You can enjoy this moment.

[00:37:29] Be yourself. Yeah, it's, we're really lucky and grateful that she is going to come and it, it's an important time. It's an important year. She, she was at our very first mom too. She spoke on the publishing panel about self publishing in Houston in 2009 when she was, and she still is, but she was at that time a social work professor at the University of Houston and the TED Talk hadn't come out.

[00:37:55] She had a book, but it was self published and it was, she jokes, she [00:38:00] was selling it out of her car. And it's, anyway, she brought that perspective at that time. She's spoken at mom a few times since she spoke in Austin at, in 2019. And you know, that's changed since 2019. And so it'll be interesting to hear from her again.

[00:38:17] It'll be interesting. She's been talking about leadership. I can't wait. Yeah, I am on so many levels. I mean, I also, I just think just being able to define leadership for ourselves because I think so many people don't see themselves as leaders, but I'm like, man, come on now, you leave your full house. Cause you know, I'm a fair play facilitator on top of all of the other work that I do, which is like, I help people rebalance domestic labor at home.

[00:38:41] And I'm like, if you are somebody who is successfully running your home, you are a leader. If somebody says, Hey, how should I vote on this measure in our city? Guess what? You're an influencer. Hey, what diapers should I buy? Cause I have this really active kid. Guess what? You're an [00:39:00] influencer. And I think people don't think of themselves in that way.

[00:39:03] Ooh, Laura. If people are now like, Oh my God, I want to go to this conference because now I know it's for me because a lot of people like, Oh, I'm not a mom or, Oh, I don't work in marketing or, Oh, I don't work in media. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's for everybody. Just come. Where can they get information?

[00:39:22] Are tickets available? Tickets are available, at least right now, while we're recording, they're still available at mom2. com backslash summit, but you can just go to mom2. com and you'll find it. We, I'm happy to give you and your listeners a discount code specific for you. So I'll share that with you and you can share that with everyone.

[00:39:41] I don't, I don't know it right now. I don't have one right now, but we'll get you one. Well, you can, you can share that in however way you want to share that. And I'd love for your listeners to come. We are an open, open opportunity group. It is primarily individuals who You know, females [00:40:00] identify as females.

[00:40:00] We 80 percent are moms and 20 percent are not moms or people who know moms or work with moms. Everyone has a mom. Everyone has a mom. Or you market to moms. Your customers are moms, whatever. I mean, our community manager for many years, Laurie White, who we love, is the most maternal person I've ever met.

[00:40:20] She is not, like, not in the traditional, a baby came out of her vagina sense, but is the most maternal person ever. So it's just, it's a group of like minds who are in the room and want to connect on projects, want to connect on ideas, and just want to connect. With each other for support, for laughs, for fun, for learning stuff from your peers.

[00:40:46] Like I feel like I I've in, in the entrepreneurial game, if you will, I've been able to like hop over a couple of spots because I just happened to see somebody at lunch and they're on a similar path. And I'm like, how did you get from here to there? And they're [00:41:00] like, Don't do what I do to do this thing instead.

[00:41:02] I'm like, Hey, thank you for saving me time, effort, frustration, money. And they're like, yes, and now it's your turn. Pass that along because it, it for a big conference, nothing but collaboration. And like a, like a cooperative spirit. It is a really magical experience. And I really appreciate that you have put it together.

[00:41:29] I'm glad that somebody was like, you should do this because I think you would find your people because I truly have, and it's just an absolute delight. Hey, Laura, can we talk a little bit about self care? No, absolutely. How does self care affect your work? Like if you're practicing good self care, how do you show up in your life?

[00:41:49] And when you aren't practicing good self care. How does that affect your life? It's sort of like if I'm eating like really good fish and [00:42:00] vegetables, or if I'm eating junk food, it's like, that's how it affects me. And I love junk food. Don't get me wrong. Like I love getting up in the morning and scrolling, doom scrolling and drinking coffee until like, Forget that I haven't eaten and I'm so jittery.

[00:42:17] And so I'm like, that is my natural state. I am like self care was not what was shown to me. Like it wasn't, I was, I was not given an example of self care in my life. And my dad died of heart disease way too early. And my mom currently has Alzheimer's and you know, it just, it like how self care was not in the.

[00:42:42] in the playbook. And I, so I, I'm the worst at it. First of all, I'm going to go ahead and put that out there for all of it. Cause I feel like a lot of people who are, I don't know. I just like a lot of the messages I get is like self care, you do this and this is how you can do [00:43:00] it. And I'm like, girl, I'm doing good.

[00:43:02] If I brush my teeth, like I'm like, not, I'm just not that person that has. It does not occur to me to help self care. It is such a thing I have to practice. It's such a practice. It's almost like, I'm not an organized person, so I have to work 80 times harder to be, and I work through like, Oh my God, you're so organized.

[00:43:23] I'm like, because I work so hard at it. Like, it is the hard You're like, thank you for noticing it. Don't think how much you're into it. Like, it is so much work for me to get that. And I think self care is the same way. Like, I have to Make myself get up and like, I am at my best. Here's my best. So like I'm at my best where I walk every morning or every night.

[00:43:44] One of the two, I wish it was every morning, but I'm more of a like ease into the day person than I am like, get up and go kind of person. Although I'm much more of a morning person than a night person. You know what? Who cares? I'm talking way too much about myself and no one cares. But the point is if [00:44:00] I, if I do some kind of walking every day and I just walk in my neighborhood and I have hills in my neighborhood and it's delightful, I mean it's hard, but it's delightful.

[00:44:09] If I walk every day, if I drink water and if I go to sleep by 10, I am just those three things. I am. Functional delightful person. Truly. I am collaborative. I'm open. I'm ready to tackle the day and to interact with people. If I don't do those things. I am a nightmare. I am. I'm grumpy and I'm over caffeinated and overstimulated and I interrupt people and I am in a bad mood and I'm exhausted by two or three and I just am not even a functioning human after any three o'clock meeting on, forget it.

[00:44:56] That's the difference. I mean, it's a, it's night or day for me. So those three. [00:45:00] Same. So, and it's not funny cause, cause my business is self care for the love of God, but it's not because I'm good at it. No, the reason this is my business is because I sucked so hard at it that basically I'm everyone's burnout bestie.

[00:45:15] I'm like, Oh, you want some burnout stories? Because I have, I have a lot of them. And what I found is time has marched on. It is just, it's not negotiable anymore. What I could do when I was 25. I am physically unable. Oh, straight up. Like, right. So now I'm like, no, now I'm just like, I'm in maintenance mode, people.

[00:45:38] And the future is not, cause I feel like I'm going to be 55 in the spring. I'm like, I just want everybody who's not 55. No, you plan on whatever you're doing getting harder. So I'm just like, let us maintain it. Same. If I don't do it, I am an actual nightmare for everyone. [00:46:00] Yeah. And you grew up in the 70s too?

[00:46:02] That it wasn't a thing? No. It just Walker? Who? It's somebody they were talking about! We like We didn't drink water. Like we, what we didn't even like, we would run around all day long. We play soccer all day long and no, there was no water. It was like, go find a hose or something. Like it's just so different.

[00:46:20] It was so stupid actually. But like now it was, but it was benign neglect at best. Right. And it was, and it, and some people are like, Oh, that's just a myth. I'm like, Oh my God. No, it's real. It sounds ridiculous. I mean, my kid's about to be 14. I tell her stories like when we were young and she wants to call CPS retroactively on like every grown up she knows because she's like, what?

[00:46:48] They smoked in the car with the children with the windows up. I'm like, I was like, did I ever tell you that time I was sitting on my dad's in the truck? And she was [00:47:00] like, you weren't in a car seat. I was like, Man, car seats hadn't been invented yet. I was sitting on someone's, uh, he was smoking a cigarette.

[00:47:07] I turned around and I burnt the end of my nose. And she's like, the man that I just had a meal with burnt your face with a cigarette. I was like, well, it was on accident. She's like, but you're inside a truck with no seatbelt, a lit cigarette and a closed window. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, Yeah, I fell out of a car and like so many stories like, oh, that one time I have this huge scar on my knee.

[00:47:37] And my son was like, what's the part? I'm like, oh, I fell out of the car one time. He's like, how did you follow the car? I'm like, well, the, it just, the car door wasn't that great and it just opened, I feel like a lot of stories, we didn't have seat belts, like a lot of stories from the olden days start with.

[00:47:55] Well, it was a different time. Yeah. Like I had [00:48:00] to have survived installed in my first car. Yeah. Oh, I know. But all that to say, like, I know that like some people are so good at self care and they do meditation, which I, Believe a hundred percent would change my life. But I am just, I'm such like beginner on this.

[00:48:21] I'm so, like we were talking about Gen X, like the fact we're even talking about self-care is revolutionary and so I'm trying to break the cycle. I'm trying to set good patterns, but I really have to start small. So it really is like. Take a walk, drink water, sleep. And that's, I'm at, I'm at like kindergarten level self care.

[00:48:44] Do you know what's funny? It's I have a group coaching program and it's been renamed. It's the care club, which stands for community accountability, resiliency, and equity. The first thing that we work on sleep, [00:49:00] moving our body, eating produce. and meditation. And when I say meditation, I mean like start at three minutes.

[00:49:10] And if you've been doing three minutes for like three months and still not want to like throw your phone across the room, I'm like, you might be ready for five minutes. Yeah. Because there's no race, right? It's like, because guess what? Tomorrow you get to do it again. Lucky you. Woo. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm a multitasker because that's just how I roll.

[00:49:34] So I, Um, like meditation to me is I'll do it while I'm walking, I'll walk and meditate and just not listen to outside sources. Like I won't listen to music, I won't listen to podcasts, I just walk and, and zone out. And that is my brand of meditating. I don't know if that counts, but it's, it's not for me.

[00:49:55] Yeah, a hundred percent counts. Well, that's the other thing is that I was asking somebody, I was like, what do you get [00:50:00] most from working with? She's like, permission to do it my way, the way that works. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's just like, yeah. So we've got the walks, we've got the sleep, we've got the water.

[00:50:11] What do you think could use more attention? Or at where we are in our life, what are you like, damn it, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to pay attention to this thing. You know, that's a good question. And what comes to mind is journaling, because people I know and respect. I don't really preach on journal, journaling and I not, I'm not even being like, that is the correct word that it is like I'm being a little facetious, but I just hear like, people are just like, just write it down, just write down, just write down, you know, it's just dump it out and I feel like I'm not a journaler, I was never a person that wanted to do that because I was afraid my little brother would find it and read everything and so like from a very little, a young age, I was Like, [00:51:00] kept my thoughts to myself, which isn't great, isn't a great practice, and I think I can see the wisdom that people say, and this is not from like learned, this isn't from lived experience.

[00:51:15] This is from what I hear and what I believe and what I probably should be doing. I'm really talking to myself is that with so much going on right now in the world and so many different things happening that are just seem crazy to us possibly. I think just like getting it out in a different way and the.

[00:51:37] The physical act of having pencil to paper and just. writing things that you think instead of typing things. I just feel like that would be neurologically beneficial. So I think that that is something that maybe a quote unquote now more than ever type of thing. It might be a really good practice to spend some time in the morning.[00:52:00]

[00:52:00] Like doing morning pages or at the end of the day, just writing things down. That's helpful. I do do that some at night when I'm kind of like worried about stuff happening the next day, or even if I get up in the middle of the night, worried about things. Just to write it down. It's almost like it's checking off some boxes and I can just.

[00:52:19] Can, right. You're like, can you hold this? Cause I, I need to quiet this up here. Can you hold this over here? Like. I can worry about that later if it's over here. So one of, one of, so I did, somebody did read my journal when I was young and I didn't write for a long time because of that. But you know those like speckly notebooks that you used to use in chemistry class?

[00:52:38] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like a lab notebook. There. Yeah. We, we use it all the time. Right? Nobody ever going to think you're going to put your deepest thoughts in a chemistry lab notebook. Yeah. Just throw that out there. And in fact, leading up to my 50th birthday, one of my friends said, you know, I think you should do it.

[00:52:54] Cause I was like, I'm looking for projects. Yeah. She goes, I think you should write 50 love letters to your inner child. And I was like, that sounds [00:53:00] insane. I think I'll do it. And you know what? I kept him in the, in that exact speckled notebook. Cause. No one's going to look at my inner child's letters. Yeah.

[00:53:09] I saved a lot of money on therapy. Oh, wow. Yeah. I can imagine. Cause I was just like, yeah, I can see where your mouth felt down. Yeah. Right? I can see why you were hurt by that. I'm like, Oh damn. Acknowledge that. Yeah. That was helpful. Was that really healing? I can imagine it would have been. Yeah, it was because it's.

[00:53:29] Cause you play both roles. You play both. Yeah. It's like you. Well, you did and then. Exactly. And you, you parent your, you could parent yourself. Yeah. Yeah. through the thing that your benign neglectful folks were not able to put you through. Or perhaps they caused the hurt. Yeah. I found it to be really lovely.

[00:53:50] I get very deeply that please don't read my thoughts. But that, that long pause was me going, I really got to put a note in my, when I die folder, just go ahead and throw my notebooks [00:54:00] away. Yeah. Cause y'all might find some stuff in there. You don't want to see, right? Right. That's your own risk. It's the inside thoughts.

[00:54:12] And so what, so your morning routine is, Pretty lax. Are you so if your ideal morning routine the days that you start that you're like Pam I need you this every day, but perhaps you don't what does that look like? I ease into the day I get up early I get up around 6 and just Like without alarm. It's just that's when my body wakes up and I You know, let the dogs out, feed the dogs, take care of that, make coffee, and it's a good day for me is having about an hour or two even Just to ease into the day and and that may mean I do where I write in the morning I'm doing some [00:55:00] writing it may mean it honestly, it may mean like watching More, you know movie like Hulu 30 minutes of it I mean, I really am a lot of people do this at night to wind down.

[00:55:13] I do not I I am I do not need to wind down. I, I fall hard, but just easing into the day, whatever that may be. And maybe I watch 30 minutes of a silly show. It may be I read I'm really like best, best case scenario. I'm reading a book and I read a cup few chapters, drink coffee, ease in. And then I tap, I start the day.

[00:55:39] I'm mornings are my most productive time. So I'm going by eight o'clock. For sure, sometimes seven and I'm in my email, I'm getting my work done. I'm, I'm going and then by about two, I'm kind of done. I mean, I'm not done. Unfortunately, I'm still doing meetings or I'm still doing whatever, but I try [00:56:00] to make the afternoon.

[00:56:02] I just work with my body flow and what works for me. I'm super awake and ready to go in the morning. I'm not. By about two or three o'clock I'm just spent, my brain just goes click. It's like tomorrow I can do a coaching call, I can do a conversation. Like I can do that kind of work, but like thinking, work, answering, work, typing, all that stuff, I'm like, yeah, I gonna do that before lunch.

[00:56:28] No, no writing, anything like that. Forget it. It's not gonna happen. So. In fact, when I'm in meetings, they're like, we need this. I'm like, I will get up early and do it for you because I can't do it. Yeah. I mean, you get it at 4 15, as far as I'm concerned. And when I made 4 15, I mean, am duh. Yeah. Yeah. And, but you know, what's funny is that I think a lot of people struggle with this idea because your, your morning sounds.

[00:56:50] Delightful. It's not hurried. It's not stressful. It's not like your pants aren't on fire. You're not like, [00:57:00] right. I'm going after my biggest productivity. You like you have to even to the day with some pleasure. You're like, I tasted my coffee. I spent time with my pets. Yeah. Read a book for pleasure. Woo. And that's, I mean, I'm at a place in my life where I can do that.

[00:57:15] Like I don't have little kids. I don't have middle school kids. I don't have a high school. I have, I have, I'm an empty nester as of this year, like my one only child just went to college. So that makes a huge difference. This has not always been the case, but I will tell you that. I've always been an early riser.

[00:57:35] I've always been the first one up. So it, even if that means like, Oh, you're going to get up at seven. Well, then I'm going to give it five. I like having. Quiet morning time and, and also that works for me because I'm not a night person. I would be in bed by nine o'clock if I, I'm like a grandma in that sense that like, I'm very delighted to sleep between 9 PM and 5 AM.

[00:57:58] I prefer to think of [00:58:00] myself as a second grader, but yes, well, they have the same schedule and right. And even in college, I was like, You guys, it's 10. Everyone needs to get out of my room. You need to be quiet upstairs. Like, it's night night time. Yeah. Same, same. Right? Cause I will be going to my eight o'clock class tomorrow and I will have had a full breakfast, made a lunch and put on a cute outfit.

[00:58:21] So yeah, y'all need to zip it. But then like everyone else, like my husband and my son are both night owls and that's, you know, and my mom was an, is, was, is a night owl. And, and I get it. Like, and so, like, if you ask my mother, she would, she slept, my dad got up early. She slept late. He's the one that got us to school.

[00:58:42] We'd see her after school. And then she was like, Playing lead until, you know, the whole night and because he was exhausted by that point. Right? So and I get it now But she would like put us to bed and that would be her prime time would be you know 10 10 [00:59:00] p. m. To 2 a. m. Or whatever it is like it's so really it's just like that's what works for me But it's like whatever your prime time is.

[00:59:06] I'm sure there's people whose afternoon is their prime time. I I don't know those people, but I'm sure they exist. And so it's like, whatever it is, you'll never met an afternoon person. If anyone listening is an afternoon person, please leave a comment wherever you leave comments. Cause we want to know what that, I'm just, I feel like it's like, you should work the swing ship if that's you, because my gosh, well, I mean, I feel like the most, the most opportune time to be like on your game.

[00:59:40] So I'm a little jealous of like afternoons, like, cause everyone, everything's happening. Like, you know, it's quite hard to wish that everyone else is just getting going, but yeah. Laura, thank you for spending this time with me. Let's do a very quick, we're making this quick, quick, The quick fire actor studio staff questions.[01:00:00]

[01:00:00] Hey, Laura, what is your Enneagram? Seven. I'm ready to party. Don't want to talk about feelings. You're right. Exactly. And also people are drawn to me because we are just, we're having fun. Are you an introvert or extrovert? Introvert. Total. Me too. I was raised by extroverts. So I know how to do that. I know how to, I know that gig, but.

[01:00:25] Truly an introvert. Same. So, you know Gretchen Rubin. Love Gretchen Rubin. I love Gretchen Rubin too. I was like, thank you for all the frameworks and figuring that all out. So on her framework, the four tendencies, are you an upholder, a questioner, an obliger, or a rebel? I'm an upholder. I think. Well, upholders are, are the people who can keep their New Year's resolutions and are wondering what the hell everyone's problem is.

[01:00:53] Like, why can't you just do it? Okay. Sorry. I have read. And so, and so rebel rebels are the ones who are [01:01:00] like, you cannot make me do it. Also, I cannot make me do it. Okay. Questioners are anytime an outer outer thing comes at you. I'm a questioner. Literally if people are like, Oh, you have to do fill in the blank.

[01:01:15] The literal thing in my mind is. No, I don't. Are you a 7 wing 8? Are you a 7 wing 8? No, I'm a 1 wing 2. So, so You're a 1 wing 2? Oh, I thought you said you were a 7. No, no. No, but in health, 1s really, they present as 7s. I can be fun. I can be fun. But I can also be an emo cuckoo bird. 4. Yep. Yep. So no, I'm just hella critical.

[01:01:43] Okay. Sorry. Okay. So questioners are people who are like, do we have to do this at all? And once you have, once you've convinced yourself that this is a good idea, you just do it. It's just, and the advisors are people who need other, they need accountability. They need people to set [01:02:00] deadlines. Like they can meet.

[01:02:02] The example that Gretchen uses all the time is the person who would never miss a running practice when they were on a team because they don't want to let the team down, but they couldn't get themselves out the door to do the run on their own because They need somebody else and they need skin in someone else's game to make it happen.

[01:02:22] Gosh, aren't we all these people? I think so, but I think I'm going to stick with my answer upholder. Yeah. I I'm questioner that leans rebel. Cause my answer internally is always no. And my answer is always yes. So, oh, well, that's so funny. I'm a one year old. Yeah. Okay. So automate, eliminate, delegate something from your home or business.

[01:02:47] Like, what are you already automate? What are you just like, yeah, we don't do that. And what are you like, that is someone else's problem. Oh gosh. Automate. Well, I feel like my whole house is automated because [01:03:00] I am married for 21 years to an engineer and a software engineer. So and he is. The most system oriented and admin oriented human ever.

[01:03:16] And so you rent out your spouse. My goodness, that sounds delightful. He's he is truly the best, honestly. Like he automates things I haven't even thought of. So I want to say, but I guess that's like, what was the last one? It's delegate. Delegate. I mean, my whole life is delegated and since in anything operational, but when it comes to like delight and decor and like, we're going to put up, we're about, we've got Thanksgiving decorations up.

[01:03:48] We're about to put those down and put up Christmas decorations, making everything prettier and more festive and more celebratory. You know, Enneagram [01:04:00] seven here that I'm like, I'm the, he's the cake and I'm the icing sort of thing. So, yeah. God, don't you love when you're with people that are your, you have a complimentary skill set.

[01:04:11] That's like, that's how I feel about my chief of staff, Katie. I'm like, I'm sorry. I keep giving you these terrible jobs. She's like, it's literally my job. She's like, please don't ever let me have to interview people or find guests, but I love doing all this stuff. I'm like, wow, thank goodness. We, if we were one person, we would be really tired because we'd be doing it all right.

[01:04:31] What is the most recent book that you read that you thought shot? Everyone has to read this. I'm going to think the best part of this question is that everyone looks at their bookshelf Immediately when I asked Optimist, no, my bookshelf isn't in this room, so I'm just like looking off, trying to get, my bookshelf is in a different room.

[01:04:51] My, my actual personal bookshelf that has all my books in it, gosh, I really haven't read much this year. I'm not gonna lie. I [01:05:00] read three books a week when I was, we were producing hardcore for Brene and we're just doing it differently this year. But, oh, I, I know what I read for a Brene podcast. It's, it's called the.

[01:05:13] I think it's called the Menopause, P A U S E, by, oh gosh, you're, someone's going to have, I'm sorry, you're going to have to edit all these ums and ahs and pauses out. I'm going to look this up. Sorry. Make me sound smart. I am a podcast editor, so I know about these pauses, how annoying they are. Sorry in advance.

[01:05:37] But Brene interviewed Dr. Mary Claire Haver. Yep. Is it the new, is the new menopause? New menopause. Yeah. That's what I'm going to say. That final answer. The new menopause by Dr. Mary Claire Haver. And I read it because she was in, in, Brene did an interview with her for Unlocking Us this fall, this October, and it [01:06:00] is great and interesting.

[01:06:01] And it's not something that, I know menopause, everyone's talking about menopause now, and I hadn't really. It's, it feels like a big topic to, to get, I didn't like know where to enter the on ramp of that highway, but I felt like it was a really good, that book was a really good place for me to enter into the menopause highway, if that makes sense.

[01:06:25] Absolutely. And there, if, if you're still looking for things down that road, I also recommend the menopause manifesto by Dr. Jen Gunter. Hmm. Yeah. It's one of those things where you're like, there's an, you're right. There's a lot of books being published right now about menopause and thank goodness for that because wow, we have had half, half the population has been female.

[01:06:48] Identified for since the beginning of time. And I'm glad we're finally talking about the thing that literally everyone goes through if you live long enough. Yeah. Oh my goodness. What's your favorite personal [01:07:00] development book? So book that you read and you thought, Oh my God, I want to change my life. I'm going to do it in this way.

[01:07:06] Oh, I'm going to say Atomic Habits, which is probably the most boring general answer ever. But because I feel like everyone's read it and if you haven't read it, it's the most simple. It's very relatable. Practical. It's like, it's exactly, it is practical. I really like that. Yeah. I love it. It's like, Oh, how do we do this?

[01:07:26] Yeah. It's just, it's pretty. It's pretty. I don't want to say basic because it's not, but it's just very, well, sorry, it is, it is, and it isn't, but it's very practical. It's very simple. It's very digestible. It felt like a breath of fresh air for me. And I don't know, it's super applicable to whatever it is.

[01:07:44] It's so, it's so base in that sense that it, you can apply it in whatever capacity makes sense for you. Exactly. And if you had to put one book as your favorite book of all time. It could be a book for your childhood. It could [01:08:00] be, I don't know. Oh my God. What's the book that you're like, Oh man, this is it.

[01:08:06] This is so funny. We just, my husband and I were just on, we just went to Scotland with some friends and they asked the same question and I. Feel like I came up with some answers, but I, now as I'm sitting here, I'm like, I don't even know, ever read a book before in my life. What have I ever read a book? I know.

[01:08:29] Yeah. Let me think about this. I have. Okay, this is going to be, this is like the lamest answer, but there's two, two books that I'm going to say, and it's just, they're so personal, no one is going to relate to this. Everyone's going to be like, these are terrible books. But when I was a freshman in high school, I read Tale of Two Cities and it turns me on to reading again.

[01:08:58] It was one of those things like [01:09:00] when you're a little kid, you read all the time. And I was one of those super achiever kids that went to the library every day because my mom worked and I lived in the library and I did the summer reading program and I read 200 books over the summer or whatever. And then I just lost it somewhere along the way.

[01:09:17] And then when I was a freshman in high school, I read Tale of Two Cities and the, just the language of it and the, the beauty of the story and the sacrifice in the story, it just turned me on to reading again. And that took me through college where I was an English literature, Shakespearean literature major.

[01:09:34] And then life happens and I kind of got off the boat and stopped reading completely. I read so much. In school, and then this is, it's so embarrassing because it's, it's not a great book, but at some point along the one summer I read Pillars of the Earth. I've never even heard of it. It's like, it's, I don't think it's a [01:10:00] great book, probably.

[01:10:01] I haven't read it since then, but it was so, it's long. I'm even looking up who, who, who, it's a series. It's by Ken Follett. And it is about these, it's a historical novel. And it's set in the fictional town of Knightsbridge, England and it's about the building of this, this gothic architecture temple church.

[01:10:28] And anyway, I don't know, it just like turned me on to reading again. And I will say along those lines, cause it makes reminds me, and this should have been my first answer, but if any, and this is super obscure too, but I love it so much and recommend it so often is there's a writer called Susan Howitch.

[01:10:46] Who's British, and she wrote something called the Starbridge series. The first, it's like a book of six or eight or nine, I don't even know, it's a lot of, it's a lot in the series. And [01:11:00] it is about these. People who live in England in the, it starts, I think, in the forties and it ends in 2010. And it's how they interact and how, and some of them are priests and some of them are rectors and some of them are psychologists and some of them are women in the town.

[01:11:21] And every book is about a different person through time. And it is, I, I'm doing a terrible pitch, but no, because Camus creeps us out. Church in my mind, but it's like each book is a series, but it like you then you see the common threads and how they were interacting each other because you just had to go to the next book to get like their perspective in the room on the same scene.

[01:11:42] It's actually a really great literary device where you're like, watch this. We're going to make this story go on. Yeah. And it's in there, maybe not in there. It's maybe a decade. I mean, it's usually like a decade later. Like it goes through time from the forties to, you know, Modern day [01:12:00] essentially and it's it's it's very good.

[01:12:03] You're gonna have to like Google it and put it in the show notes But it's Susan how itch. I think the first one is called glittering images, which is a terrible title But it's if you are into human connection interaction psychology even kind of I'm not a super churchy person, but I, the historical significance of church in people's lives is fascinating to me, the sociological elements of it.

[01:12:31] And anyway, highly recommend Susan Howitch. Check it out. Okay. And, and I thank you. And also I think any book that reignites your reading life is a great book. Yeah. Right. Cause I have had periods in my life where I dropped reading. And I, oh, when I, when I look back, I'm always like, those are, I, like things got too tough in the outer, in my outer world.

[01:12:59] So then I kind of [01:13:00] shut that part off. And so whatever brings people back to reading, I'm always like, yes, we're, we're back where we belong. We're back at the library. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you like to hang out on social media? If you had to pick just, I mean, for fun. Yeah. What, where's your social media fun? I mean, I'm going to have to say it's Instagram.

[01:13:24] That's the, it's still the like happiest, healthiest place online that I found. I am, uh, threads can be okay. Blue sky can be okay. I've kind of dabbled into blue sky recently, but just the imagery and the video ness of it. I'm not a TikTok person. It sucks out my soul and is like eating, it is like eating chocolate candy all day long.

[01:13:49] It makes me feel like garbage at the end of it. So I'm not a TikTok person, but I get it. That's not me. Like if yeah, Instagram and I, and like sharing [01:14:00] things I find with like my sister in law or my husband sends me stuff all day long on Instagram and I just think he's the funniest person and it's funny stuff.

[01:14:07] So yeah, I'm going to say Instagram. TV show past or present. What is your favorite TV show past or present? We show favorite TV show. Well, so many good TV shows, guys. Um, we, we, I think we have had an embarrassment of riches the last 20 plus years in TV, unbelievable. Like we were kids that were like TV stars and there were movie stars and there was no crossover.

[01:14:36] And. TV stars were kind of cheesy. The movie stars were like the real actors who told real stories. And now I'm like, I so rarely see movies cause TV is actually so well done. It's different. It's totally different. It's a different medium than it was when we, like 30 minute shows and laugh tracks and all that.

[01:14:57] I mean, I guess that still exists, but also like TV, what [01:15:00] is even TV? Like. On a streaming service, is that TV or I mean, I don't even watch actual TV. So I don't know. We don't even have TV. Yeah, gosh. It's almost like, what have I watched recently? Yeah. I can't pick a favorite. I cannot pick a favorite. Cause it would have to be like something really monumental.

[01:15:22] Like. Sopranos are breaking batter, sex in the city, even something that like change the medium, but it probably, what is it that I've just watched on Apple TV that was so good? Well, I love Ted Lasso because of course, and it's like breath of fresh air. Oh my God. I have to tell you, I resisted it because I was like, there is no way that this is going to be that good.

[01:15:42] And then I watched it and I was like, Oh my God, it's actually better than I ever imagined in my whole life. When can I start over? I don't know. I know. It's so well written. Oh my god. Brett Boldstein, who's just a delight, loved him. He did, he actually What did a ACL live podcast with Brené [01:16:00] in Austin during Austin City Limits Music Festival and he is great.

[01:16:04] I heard that and was like, what kind of craziness is happening on that stage right now? Yeah. Oh my God. Did you, have you watched Shrinking? That's what I was trying to think of the name of it that he did. He's a showrunner on and everything. Shrinking is so good. That's gonna be my pick. That's gonna be my pick.

[01:16:21] Bonnie. Yeah. It's really well written and really well acted. And really like, awesome. And I knew I feel a new series, the new one is out, but I haven't, I haven't started a new season. I'm not caught up. Yeah, neither. But I just tell you, I binged that over a weekend and I was like, I completed several stress cycles.

[01:16:43] Cause I had laughed so hard. I cried and then I cried so hard. I laughed that I was like, okay, well, thank you for the show. Yeah. Ooh, that's a good one. We're here. We're at everyone's favorite question. I stole this right from James Lipton. What's your favorite swear word? [01:17:00] Motherfucker.

[01:17:04] I always like to make sure that the shows are marked explicit. So I don't have to, like, check the box, everyone. Check the box. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a good word. It works in all kinds of, it could be positive, it could be negative, it could be delightful, it could be, it has a lot of different. Exactly. And, and it, with different dialects, with different punctuation, it changes meaning.

[01:17:29] I'm here. I'm here. I'm supporting your choice. Laura, thank you for spending this, uh, morning with me. I cannot wait to see you and hug you in, um, April when we're going to be wearing cute resort clothes. Oh my gosh. It's going to be so good. And whoever's listening, I hope you come and I hope that you come up and say hello and tell us that you heard us on this fun podcast and tell us what you're excited about and what you're [01:18:00] doing and how we can help.

[01:18:02] That sounds so good. I can't wait. And remember everybody, we will have a discount code for you for mom to submit in the show notes. Thanks. And until next week, remember that you matter too. Bye y'all. Bye everybody.