206: Defy the Odds (Best of Fertile Imagination Book Launch Party)

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

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

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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