232: I said I would spend more time with my kids this summer

Mom Founder Imagination Hub

In this episode, I'm here to help you tackle the challenge many mom entrepreneurs face: balancing business growth with family time during the summer break. I'll share practical strategies to maintain momentum in your business while spending quality time with your kids. Drawing from my experience and my signature three-step method, you'll learn actionable advice on leveraging the summer months to refine your company vision, boost energy levels, and enhance storytelling skills. By involving your children in these activities, you not only strengthen your bond but also tap into their imaginative perspectives. Together, let's ensure you feel empowered and supported as you navigate your entrepreneurial journey. Today's episode is my answer to this listener question below.

Q&A: It's time for growth in my business. This fall I plan to hit the ground running. I know I will have to network more to take my business to the next level but I feel rusty and fear coming across as inept. What are some things I can focus on this summer while respecting that I also said I want to spend more time with my kids during this break?

Do you have a question? Send in your mom founder question today: https://www.instagram.com/melissallarena/

Key Points:

• Summer Challenges for Mom Entrepreneurs: Balancing business growth with family time during the summer break can be tough, but I'm here to help you navigate it.
• The Imagination to Impact to Income Method: Let's dive into my three-step method tailored for mom entrepreneurs: accessing a fertile imagination, making impactful decisions, and creating pathways to income.
• Practical Strategies for Summer Success:
  1. Revamp Your Company Vision: Involve your kids in reimagining your company vision, leveraging their fresh perspectives and creativity.
  2. Boost Energy Levels: Focus on essential self-care practices like nutrition, movement, and emotional well-being to increase productivity and capacity.
  3. Enhance Storytelling Skills: Practice storytelling with your kids to refine your communication and articulate your business narrative effectively.
• Networking and Confidence Building: These summer activities contribute to enhancing your networking skills and boosting confidence in business interactions.
• Opportunity for Growth: Consider joining my group coaching program, "Fertile Imagination to Networking Success for Mom Founders," where you'll find support, mentorship, and a community of like-minded mom entrepreneurs like yourself.

As you navigate the summer months, seize the opportunity to invest in your personal and professional growth. By implementing these strategies and participating in my coaching program, you'll be equipped to tackle the challenges of entrepreneurship with confidence and purpose, achieving success while cherishing precious family moments.

This episode is brought to you by the Fertile Imagination to Networking Success for Mom Founders Program: A LIVE 9-week group coaching masterclass to fast-track making connections with the right people to take your business to the next level.

What's included in this program:

• 9 weeks of live networking coaching and community
• Value-packed on demand curriculum on everything from navigating impostor syndrome to who to network with, how to find them, what to say, and on planning your fall and winter 2024 networking calendar focused on your business growth goal.
• 3 hours/ weekly investment this summer (2 whenever or wherever you wish) to hit the ground running in the fall and feel ahead for a change
• Lifetime access to tools and resources built for mom founders including meditations and unexpected ways to let go of mom guilt and overwhelm
• Exclusive opportunity for the first five mom founder participants including a multimedia podcast guest feature, two private bonus sessions, and a 30% discounted investment

Special extras: Daily Wins Workbook, Impostor Syndrome Journaling, and Networking Email Templates and More

I’m also offering exclusive bonuses for the first five mom founders only which is a guide on how to boost your productivity as a solopreneur so you can easily fit this into your summer calendar, two private one-on-one (to implement networking outreach, to role-play your elevator pitch), and a 30% discount.

Where do you want to be 9-weeks from now? There are two options you can feel excited, intentional, and prepared to hit the ground running in the fall ready to pitch, connect, or partner with absolutely anyone who can help your business skyrocket into next year or you can play smaller, stay stuck in the same day-to-day monotony of business hiding from the people and places where the better opportunities can be created?

You are bold. You are the type of founder who will do anything for your clients! It’s time to do this for yourself! Treat yourself the same you have committed to treat others. Go for option 1. Bold you!

Believe in yourself as much as you believe in others! Imagine if you believed in yourself as much as you believed in your kids! You’d knock yourself out of every and any park!

The fastest way to get to option 1 is by investing in Fertile Imagination to Networking Success today.

Sign-up now for the 15-minute call for the details and summer start date--> https://go.oncehub.com/ClientSessionMelissaLlarena

Let’s talk here so that you won’t miss out on all of the bonus exclusive to this round of five mom founders. If you have questions email me melissa [at] melissallarena.com

TRANSCRIPT:

Three things you can do this summer that are going to help you feel like you're ahead of the game come this fall. This is a question I got from a listener. She says, it's time for growth in my business. And this fall, I plan to hit the ground running.

Now, I know I'm gonna have to network more in order to take my business to the next level, but I feel rusty and honestly, sometimes I'm scared that I'm gonna come across as inept. So what are the things that I can focus on this summer as a business owner? While respecting the fact that I also said that I want to spend more time with my kids.

Okay. I love this question. And if you have your own questions, absolutely send it over. I'm on Instagram at Melissa Lorena. I love this question because it comes up every single break, whether it is a winter, spring, or a school break of any kind, anywhere you are in the world, this is something that is uniquely a challenge for the primary caregivers of their children or family members who might be aging.

And I want to be sure that you have. All the tools you need this summer in order to feel supported and to know that there are things that you absolutely can do in order to make progress on your business. So I wanted to just share this idea with you. A recent client who participated in my group coaching program, fertile imagination to networking success for mom founders, Michelle.

She actually pointed something out pertaining to what is the point of differentiation of partnering with me versus someone that doesn't acknowledge the fact that you are a mom first. Here's what Michelle had to say. She said, it made me feel, the program that is, as if I wasn't always failing. I wasn't always failing.

Um, having to feel disappointed when things were not going my way or when things were not the way I imagined or hoped. So in the program, Michelle goes on to say that there was so much context around this idea that as long as you are moving. Towards your dreams, even if it's at a snail's pace, you are doing what you can, and that's more than enough.

So here's the thing. During the summer months, our schedules completely change for a lot of us. And we have to reprioritize what comes first, but here's something that I know personally and I also know having helped a lot of mom founders who have very different circumstances. If you decide not to do anything pertaining to making progress on your business, then there are absolutely consequences.

And here's some of them. Come September, when all of our peers are out there full force, marketing their programs, marketing their podcasts, marketing their offers, we often will feel left behind. Like we are way behind the eight ball come September. And what then happens is this pattern. You end up doing.

Everything that you should have been doing little by little over the summer in the beginning of the fall, in September. And so that is what then brings about burnout. That is then what brings about this idea that our business and motherhood is an all or nothing game. It's something that either you're all in, Or you're fully out of, and I want to really, really emphasize that it does not have to be the case.

There are absolutely things that you can do this summer that are gentle, that are purposeful, that are intentional, that will keep the ball rolling in your business. And I really, really encourage you to think through. What you want to feel in September once the kids do go back to school once the kids are back in their Regular routine and you have a bit more time to yourself to think so something else that is a consequence of not doing anything that is strategic and quite Intentional over the summer that is going to give you the biggest bang for your time Buck is this idea that It is going to be so important, irrespective of where you are as a mom to really, really keep your kids engaged over the summer.

I know, right? I heard you from the left field. So here's why that matters. As it relates to our children during these summer months and at any point, they are what I like to call imagination experts in residence. Thanks. And we lose sight, oftentimes, that a day spent with them can actually help us gain access to our own imagination.

A day spent with them playing around can help us feel fresh, give us the opportunity to think differently about things, give us this sense of fresh enthusiasm that plugs us back into why we started our business in the first place. For And so you will be missing out on this opportunity that's quite special during the summer to hang out with the kids and actually learn from them over the summer, see how they might consider certain challenges and approach certain things, right?

So that's something else that if you decide to completely let go of your business over the summer, you might miss out the opportunity to bring that fresh sense of enthusiasm, fresh perspective, a fresh playfulness. To something that you've been struggling with or thinking about in the year before while the kids were in school, like now you have these amazing humans that are around you who can help you rethink, reimagine what's possible for you in your life and in your business.

So why not leverage that unique time during the summer to bring them on board your own sort of team, right? So that's something else that you will miss out on if you decide to not do anything business related over the summer versus figure out a way to bring your kids into the loop. Here's something else that tends to happen.

So we get rusty. That listener mentioned that her networking skills are already rusty. So now imagine a summer spent where you are at home or you are on vacation and you are a hundred percent not in a business mindset and not using that way of thinking. What ends up happening is that you're going to have to warm yourself up come the fall and you're going to be warming yourself up come the fall when everyone else is.

Would have already been warmed up throughout the entire summer season. And this is not to say at all that you don't get to decompress, relax, not think about business. But what this is to say is that there are huge benefits for making progress on your business, even at a snail's pace. And I would argue that that is the reason why over the last 12 years as a mom founder with three children, I have been able to do some pretty kick ass things, such as bringing amazing guests to my podcast, like Suzy Batiste, Beth Comstock, I mean, amazing humans, and it's because I never really fell asleep, like a comatose on my business, never, never, never, even when I was tandem nursing, my identical twins, I've I continued to make progress and again, we're not talking about rockstar progress.

We're talking about snails pace, but snails pace might be the way that you achieve your big bold ambition. All right. So now let me share with you three things that you can do this summer that are not going to put you in a place of conflict. Where you're going to be telling yourself, but I promised that I was going to be spending more time with my kids, and then of course I also promised myself that I would hit the ground running come September.

That is the conflict that I want us to really nip in the bud right now on this episode. Okay, so here's where we will begin. I want to share with you my framework. This is the framework that I teach my participants in my group coaching program. And this framework really comes from experience and having partnered and worked with so many working moms just like you.

It is called the imagination to impact to income method. So three step method for mom, business owners. Here's why this method works for a mom founder, and it is specific for someone. Okay, so the first step of the method is about having access to a fertile imagination. That is also the title of my book, my bestseller.

The reason why this is critical and key and cannot be skipped for a mom business owner Is because oftentimes we find ourselves in the most complicated and gnarly experiences and we need to figure out how to keep going, whether it is figure out who's going to pick up Jake versus who's going to pick up Mary or figure out how we're going to stay, stay in terms of And the best, keep our best foot forward when we are exhausted and we're trying to complete our launch marketing plan, whatever challenge you have as a mom, if you do not have access to your fertile imagination, you are limping your way through business and life.

What this means is if you do not have the ability to think expansively beyond what you may have seen another mom. Ever do as a business owner or as a matriarch of her family, then you are greatly limited because modern society comes to you at a fast rate and thinking expansively and beyond what you have seen is the name of the game when it comes to maintaining your mental health and still kicking ass in business and being an amazing mom.

So that is step one to. Everything and anything that I teach my clients who are mom founders who want to find business success on their terms, on their timeline and alongside their kids. Now that's step one. Step two is impact. So at the end of the day, a lot of us go into a lot of things and we end up feeling scatter brained.

This is impossible to actually make your maximum impact. So once you have access to unlock these fresh ideas, because now you have access to your fertile imagination, which is step one of the three step method, it is then that you can choose from all those ideas, the one idea you're going to go all in on.

Okay. After you have decided to go all in on that one idea, That is when we could start talking about step three, which is what are the possible roads to income for you on your terms as a mom founder and the pathways to income have everything to do with the things that are within your control, the things, the skills that you need to get very good at, including storytelling, including networking, including productivity.

I mean, there's a plethora of skills that I do teach my clients. But then on top of that, there's also this ability and desire to communicate your story and communicate why you are the person to actually help someone else solve their challenge, right? So as a business owner, that is why we opened up our business, our businesses in order to solve challenges.

So this three step method, I https: otter. ai into precisely what it would look like to begin this three step method alongside your kids during this summer, and in a way where you do not feel like you are robbing time from your kids, nor robbing time from your business. So, let's get to it. So before we get to the nuances here, overall, the reason why my three step method works for mom founders is because oftentimes we have gears that are just stuck in our minds, right?

And so again, we're starting with the imagination, so we have to unlock the ability to come up with fresh solutions, fresh ideas. Then we're filtering, we're going from scatterbrained to focused by having one thing that we're going to focus on. And ultimately that is what's going to help you save time and money.

And so now let's go back and see what that looks like for a summer well spent that you absolutely are proud of and excited about come the fall when you're ready to run fast towards your goal. So, this idea of a fertile imagination. Step one, as I said, you have got to turn on your fertile imagination.

Here's how you know that your imagination is dead, is in a coma. Well, let's imagine that you have the same challenge this summer as you had last summer and you don't have a new solution. That is how you know that your fertile imagination is turned off. So we've got to be sure that that's step one. Our kids are the best human beings.

to help us turn on our fertile imagination. Think about it this way, right? Our kids, they clock in about 10, 000 hours of using their imagination when they're little. Imagine having access to an expert who has clocked in those 10, 000 hours and is not shy about sharing what is in their imagination, right?

All right. So here are the three things you can work on with your kids that are related to your business over the summer and not feel guilty about doing so either. First thing, and this is something that I have worked on with my clients in my group coaching program, and I have invited them to actually bring their kids along for the ride.

So point, the first point, you can work on your company vision with your kids. So let's imagine you've been in business for six years, for 12 years. For more than one year, chances are your company vision might not be pulling its weight. Your company vision has got to be re imagined with more expansive thinking.

Your company vision needs to energize you. Why is that? Because moms, we have finite energy. So we need all of the. Energy levers we can get right in order to keep going. So over this summer, what I would encourage you to think about is your company vision. Your company vision is not a one pager business plan.

It's not what you might have on your pitch deck and share with your investors. A company vision is deeply personal. It should be visual and it's okay if it is totally unreasonable. I actually encourage you to make it unreasonable. Thank you. And who's often unreasonable? Our children are often unreasonable.

That is why I would invite you to actually, age appropriate, speak with your kids and work on your company vision together. Have them present some dares to you. Have them stretch how you think about what's possible as a business owner. Have them Encourage you to simplify your language pertaining to what makes your business different.

So I'm a hundred percent sure you have not thought about this. The reason why I have thought about this is because there's a lot that we say we can't do because we have kids. And I want to flip the script on things that we can do and we could probably do better because we have access to these imagination experts in residence over the summer.

So working on your company vision, that is where it's at. And I remember when I was partnering with Michelle, she has an organization that's a nonprofit. And in terms of the work that they do, it's something that you wouldn't imagine talking about with your children. It's about NICU stays, pregnancy, and the loss of children.

But even in that scenario, there's a way for you to share your story with your child. And there's a way. For you to really refine your messaging and have them help you focus or hone in on one point of differentiation, where it feels like a good experience. It feels like a meaningful experience. It feels like a quality time spent with your child over the summer.

So that is one thing you can totally do over the summer with your kids. You can absolutely whip out the crayons, do what you got to do and think about your company vision. Learn And your vision needs to energize you. If it is not energizing you, then what you just did was come up with like a boring website company description.

And that is not what we're going for here. So company vision with your kids, leverage your imagination, make sure you're tapping into your expansive thinking. This can be a fun thing. This is something you could write on a post it note, put on your laptop every time that you feel a bit exhausted, but it'll get you over that hump.

That is one thing you could work on over the summer with your kids. There's a process behind them. There's a criteria, a five prong criteria for a company vision. All of that, those are the things that I share with my clients during the group coaching program, which effectively only takes about three hours of your time every single week.

And most of it would be on your time because there's an on demand training component too. Here's a second thing you could work on over the summer alongside your kids. And this is, again, having to do with the three step method that I presented earlier. So these are like pieces of the method that I want to bring to life for you, for someone who wants to spend time with her kids, but also wants to continue with her work.

Making progress on her business. I encourage you to work on your energy levers with your kids. What does that mean? So in order to be very productive You need to increase your Capacity in order to increase your capacity as a leader of a business It is important that you have the essentials down packed.

What do I mean by the essentials? Well, when it comes to your nutrition, when it comes to movement, when it comes to your emotional health, all these things and sleep all need to be worked on in order for you to feel like you have more in you to give to the world. And these are the things you could work on over the summer with your kids.

Personally, my kids still go to bed at 8 PM. I don't care if it's a break or not. Because ultimately, mommy doesn't want to break and so for me, when it comes to these energy levers with my children, I mean, I'm very much so well practiced over every single break and that is something you could work on over the summer with your kids and you can feel like you're making them.

Major progress pertaining to your business goals in the fall. Why is that? Because right now you need to gather energy. You need to figure out like when you are best, are you a morning person, a nighttime person, do you get more output before your kids wake up or when your kids go to sleep in terms of your business?

Figuring those things out now over the summer will pay off in the fall. You don't want to spend the fall season thinking about how to organize yourself. You want to think about and plan these things over the summer and you can absolutely do this with your kids. Here's one thought for, for food or food for thought, right?

Imagine if taking a nap with your kid over the summer, like one day, imagine if that would actually be a great investment into your business. Like, is that possible? I know it is. And so I want to encourage you to think about that over the summer. Here's something else that you can work on. This is the third one.

Third thing you could work on over the summer with your kids and feel like you're making progress on your business. This idea of storytelling, when it comes to storytelling, it is so urgent that you are able to articulate a story that is going to resonate with the right person. Who can help you take your business to the next level come in the fall.

So why not practice the art of storytelling with your children? A, they're going to be honest. If you're telling a story and it's boring, they're going to tell you. B, they're also going to challenge you so that you can really, really have some sort of focused message. You can really be more innovative in terms of the way that you articulate a story.

You can speak more clearly, maybe a little faster, make it a bit more punchy. I mean, they can absolutely help you communicate and they can even help you Draw on a napkin your story, draw on a napkin what makes your business different, draw on a napkin your business idea. Why is that important? So here's the thing, when I've spoken with a lot of mom founders who have business ideas and want to bring on investors.

They, they have shared with me how they feel that oftentimes a man who has the same idea could just draw something on a napkin and then he'll be cut a million dollar check. And so that is why I encourage you, a mom founder, to actually, over the summer with your kids, again, break out the crayons, the markers, or what have you, and draw on a friggin napkin your ideas.

Leverage the art of storytelling, practice this with your children and you will be better off come the fall. Now these are very practical ways for you to optimize your summer days so that this way in the fall you don't feel as rusty. And these are core skills pertaining to networking. And here's what I want to really say about that.

When it comes to networking, you need to have a kickass company vision, period. If your company vision doesn't light you up like a Christmas tree, then there's no way that you're going to magnetize the sort of investors, partners, or clients that you would want. That's step one. Two, when it comes to selling anything, enthusiasm and illustrating high energy, again, those energy levers you'll be working on over the summer with your kids.

If you don't have that sense of energy and this ability to just like bounce from enthusiasm pertaining to talking about your business, you're just not going to get the attention that you deserve on your business, nor on Your own story. And so again, this is going to be helpful in terms of networking.

I'll tell you what, when I interview my podcast guests, for example, when I interviewed Beth Comstock, former CMO of GE, something that she shared with me and on a lot of my podcast guests have shared with me is that they love my energy. And this is not about inflating my ego at all. What it is is it is a strategy I can teach you to grow.

But let's start getting the basics down in terms of practicing these energy levers that I just shared earlier with your kids over the summer. Then, when it comes to storytelling, how does this help you with regards to networking? You want to be interesting. Otherwise, who's going to want to hang out with you?

And the bar for interesting? Is totally doable. I don't want you to feel like, Oh, I'm not that interesting. I'm just a mom. I just do like regular things like that is absolutely ridiculous. You and I can have the most fun time humanly possible by just talking about something that we have both experienced over the summer.

I'm pretty sure we can. And honestly, you are interesting. I just want you to just see that as a fact. I want you to just not even imagine that that's impossible. And at the end of the day, you're so interesting that you decided to create a family and create a business and create a life that you absolutely want.

to cherish. So I believe you are interesting. So yeah, interesting people tend to network with interesting people, interesting people hang out with interesting people. And so that is going to be important pertaining to things you could do over the summer to actually go ahead and feel like in the fall, you're not so rusty.

You have some very relevant networking skills and you have an idea of what works best for you and your family by way of energy levers. Okay, so what does this all mean for you? I just shared with you a sense of how you can make this summer freaking amazing pertaining for being with your kids and also making progress on your business.

I just shared with you things that you can absolutely sneak into the day and leverage your imagination expert in residence at the same time. And these are things that you can do on your own. I mean, you could effectively devote about three hours a week this summer working on these things. Thanks. But, here's the thing.

If you don't have the nuances behind my step by step method, my three step method, as in, what each step contains, then it is going to be way harder to get the juice out of this lemon over the summer. The other thing is if you don't have access to other moms that are trying to do the same thing, then that means you're going to be hoping to find motivation to keep going versus having that group experience and that group encouragement available to you if you join me and four other mom founders this June in my group coaching program, fertile imagination.

To networking success for mom founders. We kick off in mid June. Now, am I nuts to kick off in mid June for mom founders? Absolutely not. I'm not, because what I know to be true is that all you would need is to dedicate three hours a week for nine weeks through the necessary steps that I have shared with you in this episode, along with the steps that we would go through together.

In my group coaching program, this is what I know to be true, to be the case that you need in order to feel so ready in September to speak with the right people and to have the right conversations that can truly take your business to the next level. Let me give you an example with regards to my client, Michelle, something she shared with me, which I'm so proud of pertaining to her experience in the program is the following.

She had known about the first IVF baby for years before partnering with me in this program. But having gone through this program and gone from feeling hesitant to put her big dreams out there, too bold about asking for what she wants, she had the guts to actually approach the first IVF baby and ask her to wear her merchandise.

And she's like a huge influencer. I'll share the testimonial that Michelle has after this episode, so you can hear what else she got out of the program. But what I encourage you to do is really just imagine, imagine if you used this summer to get so ready for the fall, that in the fall, you didn't feel like you were behind.

You didn't feel rusty anymore. You didn't feel like you never get to win and you also got to use this summer in a way that filled your heart as a mom who could be present with her kids and also share with her kids a piece of herself, her business. And I think that's important. I really do think it's important.

So here's the action step for you. I want to speak with you. I want to speak with you soon because of the following reason. This cohort of five mom founders in total who are going to be part of Fertile Imagination to Networking Success for Mom Founders this season, so this mid June, this cohort is going to have things that are exclusive opportunities.

The investment level for this cohort is going to be at a 30 percent discount for participating in this round in terms of having a private midpoint coaching session that is going to be a bonus for someone that participates in this round starting mid June. You're also going to have an opportunity to be a guest on my podcast.

If you're starting in this round again, starting in mid June, and you're going to have my eyes on your business so that you have a sounding board for whenever you want to approach a investor, you want to approach a partner, you want to approach a podcast guests or someone that's going to sponsor your business, you're going to have the opportunity to ask me, Hey, Melissa, am I being direct in what I want?

Hey, Melissa, is this email going to get. Opened and is my message on target with what you and I talked about or hey, Melissa, if I do this in the fall, am I going to reap the most rewards or am I going to be like stretching myself thin again? Like I did last year. These are all the sort of questions I have answered for my mom founder clients in the past in my group coaching program.

So I want to be sure that. If you are curious about participating in a program with me, this is your shot. This is your shot to participate with me over the summer. And really, I am so, so committed to making sure that when you're partnering with me, we are honest about the motherhood season that you are in.

We are honest about the business season that you are in, because that is how we can make it work. It is important that you do spend time on your business, but it is obviously even more important that you're a present parent. And I make sure of it pertaining to my group coaching program. So I will leave you with that.

You will hear Michelle's Q& A with me right after this. And I really encourage you to do that. To reach out to me, the link will be in the show notes. You can absolutely schedule 15 minutes with me for free. We'll go through the program details and I will answer everything that's on your mind in terms of the group coaching experience.

Again, it would just require three hours of your time each week. Most of it is on your own time from your, your couch or anywhere you are in the world. It'll be about one hour. That is a Q and a session and I'll give you all those details on our 15 minute free call. So go ahead and call me or schedule that time with me.

And we will absolutely go through the details. You can also email me melissa. lorina at gmail. com. Everything is in the show notes, and I hope you have the best summer ever. I never do this, but I wanted to just share a conversation between Michelle and myself pertaining to her very specific experience in the fertile imagination to networking success.

Group coaching program, certainly, if you have any questions pertaining to being one of my five mom founders this summer, so that this way in the fall, you are as confident and competent as Michelle is in distinguishing her organization versus anyone else and the confidence that she had to reach out to the first IVF baby.

If you want some of that confidence by this fall, Go ahead and send me an email, Melissa dot Lorena at gmail. com or sign up for 15 minutes with me on my calendar. You can see all this information in the show notes right on your device. All right. Enjoy the conversation. It is really raw and candid, and I hope that it really answers any questions pertaining to what it would be like to partner with me and to have me as a mentor, I would love to have the conversation and I'd be honored to support you and your company.