Speaker #0Sweet creative cutie, welcome back to the pod. Today you'll hear a little teaser about how my wedding and the honeymoon went, my revelations from taking my first ever break from the podcast in almost seven years, and what's in store for both Unleash and me as a creative in the very near future. But for now, welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative, a three-time Webby Award-winning podcast to help you claim your birthright to creativity, redefine your relationship with fear, and gain tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to go after your wildest dreams. How are you? I so missed being here with you these past couple months. You know, the break was absolutely necessary, especially leading up to the wedding. I just, I literally wouldn't have had the time to work a full-time producing job, do this, plan my wedding, have my creative coaching clients, and prep for some of the speaking gigs I have coming up. I think after that, like I needed a little bit of time of rest. We've talked a lot on the podcast about how rest is part of the creative process. And if you never rest, it's hard to ever really have a foundation to create from. So the first month was really just to create enough space to do everything I needed to do. And the second month was a little bit of rest. One big revelation that I had from this time off was I love audio books. Like I listened to slash read in my ears, in my ear balls, four or five books in the time off. And man, fiction is delightful. Like I just haven't allowed myself to enjoy fiction. I actually, I want to read again now that I've kind of gone in through the medium that I feel most comfortable with, which is audio. I really want to get into reading because the theater of the mind is so amazing. I always say audio is the most powerful medium because it allows the listener to co-create with you because you don't have... the tool of the gestures and the facial expressions and what the room looks like to fill in the gaps. It's really the listener using their creativity to fill in all the gaps. I mean, books really take it to the next level because you don't even know what these people's voices sound like. And you have to invent everything in your mind. It's just such a great creative tool. And reading those books really inspired me, gave me ideas for podcasts, gave me ideas for writing, for music, and... I forgot. I told you I'd tell you about my wedding first. The wedding was amazing. You may have listened to my two wedding lead up episodes. If you haven't already, I highly recommend it. I did it with my then fiance, now husband, Timmy. And you heard me talk a lot in the second episode where we talked about wedding planning, about how stressful it was and kind of what a difficult time I had planning the wedding. Prior to the wedding planning process, I thought, well, this will be a piece of cake because I'm used to doing a million things at once. So planning a wedding, please, like could do it in my sleep. Turns out it's one of the hardest, if not the hardest creative project I have ever put together. Cause I don't think I've ever put something together on that scale. Right. And I just have to say every single minute, every mental breakdown, every painstaking decision, every sign I had to print out was absolutely worth it. Couldn't have been more worth it to the point where the week after we got home from our honeymoon, I was like, should we plan another party? Cause I think I love party planning. I may not love the process, but I love the result. And now that I know I love the result, I can just keep that in mind as my why the whole time I'm planning and it won't feel as hard. Plus nothing's ever going to be as hard as planning a wedding, like a wedding. There's so much pressure because it's supposed to be the best day of your life. And by the way, not to be a walking cliche, but It truly was the best day of my life. It was so beautiful. There was a point where I turned to Tim. We had our little sweetheart table and I turned to him and I said, every single second of stress was worth it. This is the most magical day. Thank you for cheering us on. And it just was so beautiful. Tim and I, at some point in the next month or two, we'll do a full wedding recap. And we're going to do it as soon as possible. So we don't lose our memories of it because it's, you know, it's already been a month, which is wild. So. How does it feel to come back? I feel so many different things about coming back to the podcast. One thing that I want to be honest about is I still don't feel ready to get back to doing the podcast at the clip I was doing it, which was like every single week on Wednesday at 1am, I will release the podcast. I know what all the wisdom of podcasting says because I've worked in it for so long. I've produced 30 shows, four number one hits, all of which have been charting. podcast. I know what it takes to make a successful show, or at least I know what the classic wisdom is, which is release a show on the same time at the same day every week. And I agree with that. And if I'm looking at my human design, which if you don't know, human design is basically a system that's like a hybrid between astrology and a lot of different other modalities. And it tells you how your energy is meant to work in the world. My human design tells me I'm meant for an inconsistent schedule. I really enjoyed putting out those two wedding episodes because I didn't hold myself to, they have to be out on Wednesday at 1am. I put one out on a Friday and one out at a Tuesday. And At the end of the day, that felt so much better to me because I didn't feel so constricted by like, I have this very rigid timeline. And if I don't get it out in this time, it's a failure. And I didn't do what I said I was going to do. So I'm going to try to be consistent for the time being. But one thing that I am absolutely going to be doing differently is trying new things and not being so rigid because I think that's part of what burnt me out in the past. I think that just because that's the way something has always been, or that's what traditionally works, doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for you. And this is where you always have to trust your own inner knowing over what anyone says, over what the experts say, over what I say. Always go inside yourself and say, what feels good to me and what feels true to me? And being rigid doesn't feel like creativity to me. At the same time, I do look at you, my sweet podcast listener, like my friend. And if I invited my friend over at 2 and I was like, actually, how about you come over tomorrow at 3 p.m. instead? I understand that there's like a loss of trust there. So I do want to take that into account. But I'm curious, how much does release time really matter to you? If you have an opinion on this, please let me know. For now, I'm planning to release on... Thursday starting out, seeing how that feels and going from there, which is a switch from Wednesdays. But I think later in the week will help me kind of ramp up to it a little bit more. So that's something I've been thinking about. How can I do it so that it's more sustainable for me? You know, it's not just what your creativity is. It's not just why you do it. It's also how you do it that makes it sustainable or something that's likely to lead to burnout. So one thing for the show and for my whole life is I'm really going to start to think about how things feel while I do them in addition to what the result is and why I'm doing it. Because if it doesn't feel good while you're doing it, what's the point? It's got to feel good because everything matters. The energy behind something is just as important as the thing you end up doing. I really did miss the show though. It is such a grounding force in my life to have this touchstone each week. to come into, especially when I do solo episodes and to really sift through how I feel, get to connect with you. It's basically like doing a mini keynote speech every week. This show is a real place where I have found myself and strengthened my voice and found so much courage and not having it, it made me feel a little aimless, honestly. This show really grounds me and is such a foundational piece of my life and creativity. Everything else builds off of the show, like my thought leadership, my speaking, my coaching, my music. This show is the nucleus of my creative world. And when I didn't have it, I felt a little lost. I felt like a piece of me was gone, like I lost my twin or something. My podcast is my best buddy. I know I haven't had it since the womb, but it's been almost seven years. It's like my kid. It's like a piece of me at this point and not having it felt really weird. I was, however, very, very proud of myself that I actually took the time off. The last time I took time off of the podcast, I didn't actually take time off because I still re-aired an episode each week with a new intro. So I had to go through writing titles, descriptions, edits. finding the right intro, re-listening to the episode to make sure it made sense. So I was really proud of myself that I learned my lesson from the last time, because when I came back from my last break, the first thing I said was I should have taken a real break. So one point for learning your lessons in life, it's surprisingly difficult to do that. And here's to continuing to learn them. The questions I'm raising are not answers in any way. It's like, I'm wondering, do I need to be as rigid as I was? Maybe I do. Or can I have more flexibility so it feels better to me? And therefore, because you're feeling the energy that I am putting behind the show, even if you don't know it, like on a subconscious level, I've seen this happen, especially with shows I produce. When something changes with the production style or the host or whatever, and like the energy isn't quite right, the podcast performs more poorly than it did in the past. I've seen this happen over and over again. So I do think the energy behind something is so deeply important. But anyway, I'm playing it all by ear. I'm telling you what I learned from this experience is to listen to myself more, to know the difference between resistance, which is basically the voice that tells you you don't have to do it right now. You can do it tomorrow. So there's that voice that isn't really real and is basically like scared and trying to keep you from being seen out in the world. And there is a little inner knowing voice that tells you, I'm so tired. This doesn't feel right. I can't create like this. I need to do it in a different way. So I'm trying to really make sure I know the difference between those two voices right now and listening to my higher self and not drowning out the voice just because I said I would do something. Here's the other thing in saying that I felt naked without the show. I have found myself feeling a little bashful in other areas, whether it's making content, making music, doing this show week after week really keeps me agile with my communication skills, with my ability to think on my feet, with my creativity, always being at the forefront, creating a new episode every week, coming on here and just talking from the heart. These things all help every other thing I do and not. doing this for two months made me a little rusty. So I'm really excited to get back to it. Even now as I'm recording this for you, I'm feeling like, am I making any sense? I'm stumbling over my words. I'm going around in circles, but it's just because I'm not used to it. This show really helps increase my creative confidence. If you take a break from any creative project that's ongoing, notice all the good things that come up as well as all the things that you miss. and the revelations you have. Keep a running list and take those things into account when you go back into the project. One thing that has been very important to me and that I have going for this next round so that I'm less likely to get into burnout is I have a lot of episodes stacked, especially interview episodes that are already completely done. So I'm not going to be living hand to mouth week after week. trying to turn around a new episode because that was what was exhausting me. It was like all the last minute work. Another thing I've been thinking about because obviously podcast is going through a moment of change where there's so much video. As you know, I've started incorporating video both for my interview shows and for my solo episodes. You can watch this on YouTube if you didn't know that if you're listening. I've kind of been beating myself up because I'm like, oh, I don't have the best video and video production is newer to me. So what am I going to do? I have recently discovered this woman who is a workout expert. Maybe she's a trainer. I'm actually not sure, but on YouTube. And she does not have the best video quality. I did an arm workout with her and it was one where you lift weights. And she literally cut off like a fourth of her hand in the video. But I was reading through all the comments, which comments are everything to me, but I was reading through all the comments and People were talking about the results they got from it. And this workout was good. And doing it a few days, I saw the results. And that experience really made me realize you don't have to have the quality. You have to have the results. If you have good quality, but your results or your content sucks, it really doesn't matter. So yes, if you have great results and great content and the quality is great, you're probably going to go even further. That could be true. But if you don't have the content, if you don't deliver results, forget it. Having the best camera, the best microphone, the best editing, it really won't matter if you do not have the content and the results. So it's something I'm going to be taking into this next phase of the podcast. It's like, I want it to be as good as possible, but I'm also not going to destroy myself over figuring out. certain pieces that people will probably never even notice because it's more important to me to have fantastic content for you. And speaking of that, we have a lot of amazing things coming up. I have so many solo episodes I want to share with you. I also want to start making creative promises on air and maybe we can do that with each other. As I said in the last episode I did, that was a solo episode before I took my big break. I want to start a sub stack and I want that more than ever. And so I am declaring here that by the end of October, I will publish my first Substack article. I'm scared because I'm like, how am I even going to have the time for that? But I'm going to do it because it's important to me. And I actually had a really good idea for my first one when I was in Fiji. I've got a great metaphor swimming around in the old noggin. So I want to do that. And I would love for you to write in and tell me what creative promise you want to keep to yourself. in October. By the end of the month, you're going to do this thing. It could be a very small leap, like I'm going to write a chorus for a song, or I'm going to reach out to a friend and ask them if they want to ideate on this business with me. Whatever it is, I want you to think of something that you want to do in the month of October, and then write me at unleashyourinnercreative at gmail.com or leave a comment or DM on our Instagram at unleashyourinnercreative. And I would love to know yours so we can hold each other accountable. Also join our Instagram broadcast group. This is also a great place where you can share it. And there's a community in there so we can all be together and hold each other accountable in there. Another very exciting little piece for you. I got approached to do some merch. Ooh. So I don't want to just do merch that says Unleash Your Inner Creative. As much as I want that, and I think it would be wonderful, I want something that will not only appeal to our creative community, but also people that follow me on Instagram that aren't current listeners of the podcast, friends of friends who are interested in having a shirt that's just meaningful. So there's a bunch of different ideas I have for what the shirts could say. I'm going to read a couple to you right now. If you would also let me know which of these you like the best, that would mean the world. It was really fun because when I was brainstorming these, I wrote them on an Etch-A-Sketch and it just felt so fun to do it. basically I felt like I was co-creating with my younger self. Okay. So one option for the shirt is I love younger me going, you know, with the inner child theme. One is I love my inner child, late bloomer with like a little flower underneath, unleash and creative. Let me know which of those sayings resonate most with you because what the, the, probably the t-shirts, the mugs, whatever will be is one of those things across it and across. all the different merch. So it will have a word and maybe a design with it. And that's what it's going to be. So let me know which of those resonated with you, which you would be most likely to want and to wear and what you think best represents the ethos of the show and the community and what we're trying to do here, which is help people claim their birthright to creativity. That's another one I want to add to the list. Creativity is your birthright or creativity is my birthright. So yeah, write in. let me know which one you like the best. Another very exciting, unexpected thing. I'm going to be acting again. What? Who is she? I recently met an amazing woman named Angela. She is an agent and she is signing me for acting, voiceover and hosting. So you never know when a dream that you thought was gone or definitely at least was paused will come back to you. And I'm really excited about it because now I get to do it in a way I didn't get to do when I was younger, which was for the joy of it, for the fun, for the play. But also knowing that acting is a job. I always looked at it as like, oh God, I'd be so lucky just to have a role. I always kind of approached it with more of a servant mentality. And now I can't wait to go in rooms and just play, have fun and realize it's a job interview at the end of the day. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to it. I feel super excited, fresh and free. And I was floored when she offered it to me. She was like, I really think that you could do acting. Do you act at all? And I was like, oh, do I ever? Let me tell you about my BFA in theater. So I'll keep you updated on how all that goes. And the other big thing, big news, you may not know or you may know. I have had an LLC, a limited liability company, since 2021 called Lauren LaGrasso Productions. And this fall, I am hard launching it. So this is the company that produces the podcast, that houses all of my public speaking, that I run my creative coaching out of, and all my music is produced through. And so I am going all in on this. And it's something I've been working on for a really long time. And I'm super excited to keep you updated as I deep dive into entrepreneurship. I'm also taking on a super exciting producing project, Emma Greed, who co-created Skims and Good American. She's got an incredible business podcast called Aspire. So starting in November, I'm going to be taking over the executive producing on that show at the company I work for as a producer, Odyssey. And I'm super excited about that. So lots of great new creative projects coming in. I missed you. Welcome back. Thank you for being part of this community and for inspiring me and helping my dreams come true. I'm recording this on International Podcast Day. Podcasts are my favorite thing. This show is like the heartbeat of my creative life. And I'm so grateful to be able to come back here week after week, work through my stuff with you. And give you tools and... Share in community. I'm doing this speech. Oh, another cool thing is I'm speaking at the Mandalay Bay on October 13th with this incredible group called WISE. And it's the WISE workshop. It's for women in insurance. It's so cool though, because it's 50% women in this group and 50% men who support women. And it's all about women's empowerment and going after your dreams for women in insurance. And I'm so excited for that. edited and updated my keynote speech on the power of unleashing your creativity and added a step because I really do think that this is vital to achieving our dreams. And that is find your creative dream team. We all need believing mirrors, which are people that see us and believe in us, even when we can't see and believe in ourselves. And we all need creative collaborators because you can only get so far by yourself. So right now is what I'm really looking for is collaboration. And in the past year, I've had some amazing ones. But I'm so excited to find more collaborators so that I can continue growing as a creative. I can give back. And yeah, just finding like-hearted and minded individuals to make stuff with makes all of this worth it. And you're all, even if I don't know you, just by listening, you're my creative collaborator because this show really is. It's an energy exchange. Thank you so much for being here. If you need to take a break from an ongoing project, I highly recommend you do it. But if your heart is yearning for it and missing it, definitely come back to it and come back renewed and ready to do it differently than you did before so that you don't get burnt out. I love you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. The show is executive produced and created by me, Lauren LaGrasso, with theme music by Liz Bull. Please share the show with a friend. Podcasts are really spread person to person and your greatest influencers in your life are your friends and family. So definitely share Unleash with a friend. Give it a rating. Give it a review. Follow the show if you haven't already. I believe in you and I appreciate you. Creativity is your birthright. Get out there and claim it. And I'll talk to you next week. We have an amazing guest in Marianne DeMarco, a psychic medium and author who's going to teach you how to hone your intuition. It's a powerful episode and it's really fun because she's Italian. So we gab. All right. Bye, babes.
