208: Navigate Holiday Chaos (Best of Fertile Imagination Book Launch Party)

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

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

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so I invite you to do the same.

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