Speaker #0Oh, of course, as I go to record, there's someone who sounds like they're moving risers outside. And if you were ever in show choir, you know the sound of a moving riser. Maybe this isn't relatable, but just so you know, it's a loud noise. Okay. Well, That was an interesting entrance to the show. Hi, creative cutie. Today, it's just going to be you and me and my... unhinged pregnancy brain spending a little time together. I'm going to be bringing you up to date on what I've been doing in my creative life, thoughts I've been having. Literally, I'm going to take you inside of my journal and my morning pages. And my biggest takeaway for today for you is choose expression over impressions. More on that in a bit. But in the meantime, welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso, your creative coach and host. And this show is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your birthright to creativity and pursue your wildest dreams. Today on the pod, you're getting a look inside the pages of my creative diary. For this solo, I am just going to be talking with you. You know, for a lot of solo episodes in the past year, I don't really know how I got into this, but I've basically been following the same method I do when I write a keynote. So coming in with like a really hot take thesis statement. Proving it through examples and stories and ending with a call to action. Love doing that. Love giving you those super specific, heavy takeaway episodes. And at the same time, they're kind of exhausting me right now. And so I think a lot of making sure that you don't get into burnout as a creative is looking not just at the what you're doing, but at the how you're doing it and making sure that you're optimizing for the moment in life and creativity that you're in. And right now. It feels a lot better for me to be in flow than to be in planning mode. Truthfully, it never feels great to be in planning mode, but sometimes I really have a need to do it because there's a certain point I want to share. Right now, I'm brimming to... Wait, that's not the way it goes. Right now, I'm to the brim with thoughts. I was going to say I'm brimming to the top. I don't think that's a cliche. If you've listened for a while, you know I consistently mess up cliches. I'm kind of like the Michael Scott of podcasting. But anyway. So yeah, I'm going to just go through what I've been thinking about, what I've been doing in my creative life outside of this gorgeous little podcast and take you into all that. The biggest thing, something that I announced kind of off the cuff this weekend, and I announced it like as soon as my brain and soul announced it to me, I announced it to you. This is one of the few benefits of being an indie artist that you can live off the cuff like that. But here it is. I'm going to be releasing new music. I announced this across my socials and on my sub stack. I have been sitting on two songs for over two years now and they're fully produced. They're done. And I've just been waiting for the quote unquote right moment to do it. You know, thinking that at some point I'm going to get all of the perfect marketing materials together and I'll have a budget and I'll just be able to like have all the greatest videos to put out. But I realized maybe that moment won't come or it might not come for a while. And with my baby coming this August, I really want to have this out into the world before they get here so that when they're of age, we can listen to it together and I can show them a little bit of what was on my heart leading up to their birth. I don't want to get too far away from the woman I was when I wrote these songs. You know, it's been years since I've wrote them and since I've recorded them. And so I feel safer doing it before it gets too much further away, especially once I go through. birth because from everything I've heard and read, you go through a whole identity shift when you have a baby. And these songs might not be relevant to me in a few months or a few years. So I really want to put it out now where they still feel fresh. And the biggest thing is what we've talked about a lot on the show, that your creative legacy, your saying yes to yourself is more important than any external or outward validation you could get from a thing. Do I still want my music to be heard by hundreds of thousands or millions of people? Yes, of course. I'm highly ambitious. And I know that my number one goal right now is just expression. I'm choosing expression over impressions. And if you're somebody who has something on your heart, who's been waiting for the right moment to put it out there, to share with the world, to share this project, I want to highly recommend you choose expression over impressions too. If you do want to get your project seen by more people, by all means, if you have the budget and the insight, invest in marketing or learn about it and share it as much as you can. But also knowing that you have to be the one that says yes to yourself and that... you hiding is definitely keeping your songs from or your whatever it is that you're making from being seen. It was just a light bulb moment. Like I don't even know what spurred me on. It's just I was doing my morning pages. I'm like, I need to release these songs. I need to put these songs out into the world. And so yeah, my number one goal right now is just to say yes to myself and to share my heart. You know, I think that this was another part of it. I was thinking about the kind of mom I want to be, honestly. and the lessons I want to teach my child, especially lessons that maybe I didn't learn. And one thing I definitely want my child to know, as I want myself and all of you to know, is that there is deep value in sharing your voice with the world, that the creative act and creative expression is not dependent on how it's received. It is worthy just because it happened, just like you. Because remember what we always say here, who you are is the best thing about you. So yeah, I'm ready to share who I am through these songs. I'm super excited. Here's my plan. Now this part is an Unleash exclusive. So you're hearing this first. I'm going to release one song in May in honor of Mother's Day, my first and only so far, at least, Mother's Day while pregnant. Also, it's Mental Health Awareness Month, which you know, most of my music focuses on mental health, generational healing, you know, all that good stuff. So this song does pertain to that. So it's also great synergy there. And then in June, I'm going to release another. And then finally, in July, I'm going to release an EP. Now, the EP is going to be comprised of music I've already released that has swearing in it because I love swearing and I'm never going to stop loving swearing. But I definitely don't want to be the mom that swears in front of their kid and then they go to preschool and there's like dropping F-bombs every other word. So I'm trying to like, first of all, I'm... getting out my fucks right now because once the kids hear I'm gonna have to rein it right in but um when they get here I want to be able to share music with them that doesn't have swearing in it because I want them to be able to listen to it and sing it back and sing it sing the clean version so that is going to be my um last you know release before the baby gets here and my takeaway from that for you is if you have a project do the thing release the thing you Put your voice and your soul out into the world and you never know what magic could happen. By the way, the last single I kind of took this approach. I was still kind of emo about it because I had baggage from the first batch of singles I released. But that turned out to be my most impressive download number song ever. It's gotten over 21,000 listens. And I really took the approach of I'm putting this out into the world because I love it. And it has run circles around the, you know, download. numbers of all my other singles so far. So putting things out, I always say the energy behind something matters just as much, if not more than the work itself. And if you can put something out from a pure intention and really come at it from a place of joy and self-support and love, magical things can happen even when you don't have all the right marketing pieces in place. So just keep that in mind as you go to release your projects. And I will too. Remember, every time I'm teaching you a lesson. I'm either teaching or reteaching it to myself. We teach what we most need to learn. And so that's why I'm here to unleash along with you. Some other things I want to go through are just, I've been journaling a ton. I've been doing my morning pages pretty much every day. Sometimes, don't tell Julia Cameron, I skip one day on the weekends. But I just noticed my day goes so much better when I start with meditation and then go into the pages and then go into the day. So something I did in preparation for this recording is I went through like about the last week worth of journal entries. And I read through to see what patterns I found, what phrases or thoughts stuck out to me, and what I genuinely found helpful in my creative journey. So I'm just or interesting at least. So I'm going to read you a list of my greatest hits from my journal from the last week. And talk through some of them with you because I think there's some good stuff there. There's some meat. within the chaos because a lot of times I'm also writing like, I'm anxious, I'm tired. That's normal too. The first thing I wrote that I want to share with you is stop trying to solve multiple problems in your head at once. This is something I realize I do a lot of that creates a lot of anxiety. I'll be trying to work out like three different problems at once in my brain. And first of all, I think focusing on one problem at a time is helpful. if you actually want to solve it instead of just spinning on everything you have to do and you're overwhelmed. But second of all, something I've been finding very helpful is just writing things down, not only in the journal, but in my notes app on my iPhone. I get overwhelmed because I have so many things going on in my life. And at least for the next month and a half, I still have a full-time job producing. I've got my consulting clients, my creative coaching clients. I've got a couple of keynotes I'm preparing for these music releases now, the podcast. So there's a lot of things going on. Plus, I'm trying to prepare to be a mom and I really need to make time for that. That's another thing. See, I'm stressing myself out now. Take your own advice, Lauren. Do it. But anyway. One thing that has helped me tremendously is just getting all of the things that I feel I need to do out on a piece of paper. Novel idea. People have been talking about them for years, but I was like, oh, what losers. I'm not going to make a to-do list. Well, they do work. So I've been just like getting that stuff out and then prioritizing it, making a to-do list. And then this amazing thing happens. I like doing a strike through when I do the task that I have been dreading. And it just gives you this like endorphin boost because you did the thing you said you were going to do and then it's no longer a stress in your head trying to figure it out. One thing I've realized a lot about myself, and I think a lot of us that have anxiety do this, we spend a lot of time asking why or thinking about all the things, but not actually trying to solve the problem. It's like, okay, this is what I'm dealing with. What would be the solution to that? Or what is the task I need to do to quell that anxiety. So Getting the anxiety or the things that you know you need to do out of your head, making a to-do list, and then prioritizing the tasks. Sometimes because I have these different sections of my life, as we all do, I'll even make different sections. So I'll do producing, coaching and consulting, speaking, personal life, medical. So it kind of helps me prioritize and see, okay, these are the things for each category and this is like the order of importance for each. And then crossing them through and you do it just like... It's like an instant anxiety relief. So that's another thing I acknowledge in my journal that I've been doing lately that's super helpful that I recommend you do too. Now to a little bit less tactical, a little bit more spiritual. This is something that I wrote down and it's true for all of us. You are one of one. Stop trying to follow someone else's journey. So I went in a little bit, I did that in my journal because I was trying to compare myself to people. I'm like, am I like, oh. Oprah? Am I like Julia Cameron? Am I like, you know, I went through this whole list. I would have to look back to see all the names. But basically, I took someone from like the hosting journalism world to the inspirational creative world. I also think I listed Amy Sedaris in there because I've always felt a pull to her quirky humor. And I think I had one musician. And I was like, I'm all of these people combined into one. But then I was like, wait, no, I'm just myself. And the reason I've been struggling to find my path is because I keep trying to fit into one of these other people's paths when I don't. I do all these random things. It's not random. I have all these gifts and you have all these gifts. And instead of seeing like, wow, the beauty and uniqueness of my own path, I've been trying to be like, well, why can't I be more like this person? Or why don't I do that? And it's like, no, you're one of one. All of us are, but we often feel we need to follow the blueprint of someone else's journey. So my takeaway from this is if you are writing your path, if you are writing your own blueprint for your own life, and there's no one to follow because there's no one exactly like you, good. You get it now. You finally realize that no one has walked your path before. No one is like you. You are one of one, and no one ever will walk your path. because you are the one that's got to do it. And you're perfectly equipped to create your own road. And if you're not taking all of your talents and all of your goals and all of your uniqueness into account, it's going to end up falling flat because you're just trying to like copy somebody else's path or fit into somebody else's path when really you have to forge your own and make your own creative journey. So I would say just go do it. You're a gorgeous unicorn. And you've got this. And that's kind of what I intend to do. Like, I want to be inspired by all these people. And if I see something they've done that I want to do in my own life, I want to try to do that too. But I think part of why I've struggled to find my way as a creative at times is because I've really been trying to fit into the box of what other people have done instead of owning all of my power as a multi-passionate creative. And more importantly, most importantly, as a human and who I am. And so. if you feel like that too, I want to highly recommend, yes, gain inspiration from other people, but then forge your own path and go about it in a way that makes sense for all of your talents and all of who you are. On that not copying other people's timelines, this is another thing I wrote down. Other people's timelines don't apply to you. And I thought of this because I have been reflecting a lot as I've been pregnant and going through this journey on all the messaging I got around pregnancy. And I talked a little bit about that in my pregnancy announcement episode. Definitely check it out. One of my greatest takeaways is it's possible to pre-plan without pre-suffering. I had assumed I was going to have fertility issues. And my... experience, you know, getting pregnant was one of ease. Now that doesn't mean that people my age don't have fertility issues and I have tremendous compassion for it. But unfortunately, those voices have gotten so loud that it overwhelms your thoughts when you're in your mid to late 30s. And you just kind of, I mean, if you run anxious like I do, you kind of assume that it's going to be hard for you. And I was thinking back to some... messaging I got, actually a personal message I got that was the exact opposite of that. And I don't know why it was so hard for me to listen to it. But I had a reading with a Vedic astrologer about two years ago. Maybe it was longer. It might have been like three years ago. And she said to me, you have children in your chart, but it's going to be much easier for you to get pregnant after 35 or 36 because of your specific chart. And that... is so interesting to me. And listen, obviously, she's not like a medical person. She's speaking off of her personal opinion based on my astrological chart. But isn't it interesting that the exact opposite of what they tell you, which is you have to try to get pregnant in your 20s. That's when you're most fertile. And listen, I'm not like denying science here. Like, I know that's a prevailing thought process and like what tends to be true via scientific evidence. But you have no clue what your timeline is. And according to this woman, and I have to believe she's right because I never got pregnant or even had a pregnancy scare before I actually was pregnant, which happened at 36. So according to this woman, that was what was meant for me. And who knows if something else that supposedly should or usually does happen easier in a younger timeline or even an older timeline couldn't happen for you right where you are right now. So I just really want to encourage you, yes, listen to other people's stories, prepare as much as you can, but also know that you're on your own path and nobody gets to tell you your timeline except life, really. And nobody knows it but you, your intuition, your relationship with a higher power if you have one, and what your life ends up telling you through what happens. Just don't buy into anyone else's negativity or... small-mindedness around what you can do and when. Okay, here's another thought that I pulled from my journal. And I have like five or six more, so buckle up, baby. This is something I wrote down, and it's true. Business is crazy because you're chasing down maybes. I have realized as I'm starting to create the pipeline for my business, I'm getting new podcasting clients, new creative coaching clients, new consulting clients, and speaking gigs. And it's all very exciting. And I'm taking lots of discovery calls where... me and a potential client are deciding if it's the right fit. And it's just so wild because in all of these meetings, you're putting in your time, you're putting in your heart, you're creating proposals, and it's all a big question mark. And I find part of that really exhilarating. Like, ooh, I kind of like having to like sing for my supper in this way because you don't know what's going to happen. And like when you're working a corporate job or when you're working, you know, for a company. It's typically like every meeting, you kind of have a gist of what's going to happen. But it's just so wild. And I'm really just, I'm writing this down because I'm like, yeah, you're chasing down maybes and that's the way it's supposed to be. And like your job is to turn them into a yes. But the question mark of it all, it's something I'm definitely going to have to build my nerve around. It's nothing that's bothered me before. I actually like have a pretty good conversion rate, which I'm deeply grateful for. but I want to make sure as I'm going into full, full-time entrepreneurship, which will be in May, that I continue to have the breeziness that I've had as I've had this full-time job income backing me up. So just something to continue to think about. And if you're an entrepreneur, you know what it's like chasing down maybes, but then turning them into yeses. This is just funny. This next one that I'm going to read you. Okay, here's the next one. Perhaps this week is the week I finally get my shit together. Oh, honey. I love that. And I think I do have hope for that every single week. And... I want to start to have compassion for the fact that I am a person who always sees where things could be better and more beautiful and more passionate and creative and exciting. And it's okay that it may never be done. Like, I think I feel like I have to get every single thing in place for everything to be okay. And maybe everything is okay all the time. Like, nature isn't perfect. So, but... it is in its imperfection. And so I punched the desk. And so why couldn't I be? Why can't having a little messiness be okay? I kind of think in this next phase of my life, especially going into parenthood, I'm going to have to build compassion around messiness, especially my own messiness, and around things not being solved. always trying to close the loop of anything in life. And when it is a question mark, like the thought I had before, it stresses me out. But maybe that is one of the great points of life or the great lessons of life is to be able to sit in the discomfort of the question mark and know you're still okay even when you don't know the right answer, quote unquote. So perhaps this is a week I'll finally get my shit together. Probably not, but Either way, can I learn to love myself through the mess? Okay, here's another little ditty I wrote down. Freedom and security, can you have both? Yes, I want to prove it through the contents of my life. I had a big block to jumping off into a creative path, into entrepreneurship because of two things. I was denying the fact that I wanted security and that the feeling of jumping off you scared me because I really enjoy security and I enjoy being able to support myself, especially as someone who the first four years I lived out here was very economically unstable and worked really hard, but didn't make much money. And I mean, it was longer than that, but at least once I got a job job, I knew where my next check was coming from and it was steady and I had benefits and all that. But leading up to that, it was pretty unstable. I was working three jobs. I you know was just scraping by while pursuing my dream. And I think that that all affected me more than I thought. And that the feeling of security, of having a full-time job, of working a corporate job, of having a paycheck every two weeks was simply intoxicating. I must admit it was wonderful. But there are ways that you can set yourself up for that while being an entrepreneur. I mean, of course, you can't control everything. But also when you work for someone, you can't control everything. There is no true stability, but you can give yourself as much as possible. And I honestly think you have more control over that when you are an entrepreneur than you maybe do at a full-time job, even though you can kind of con yourself into thinking you have that security. If you've saved correctly and you have enough funding going into it, which I thank you to my former self and current self have been saving to... take this leap. But yeah, I really want to prove through my life that you can have freedom and security. I don't know exactly what that will look like yet, but those are two values of mine, freedom, security, creativity, and love. I would say those are probably my top business values and life values. And so yes, I'm hoping through this next journey from May 2026 on to prove that you can have freedom and security. So I'll repeat back to you. I'll report back to you on that. Oh, this is just something else I was thinking about. The word freelancer, it's really interesting. And maybe some of you are freelancers out there. And I don't know the exact etymology of it or whatever. But I do feel like the word freelancer undermines what people in those roles are doing. What those people are is entrepreneurs. They're business owners. And yes, they work for a lot of different people a lot of the time. But they're entrepreneurs full stop. And I often think about the word free because I really like it in the case of freedom. But then there's this other meaning where it means... value lists, right? Like no cost, free. And so I often think about how interesting that it's in freedom, but it also means like no value. And I wonder if you're saying like freelancer all the time, if that has some sort of effect on your brain. So just a random thought, you will not catch me saying freelancer. I am going to, because I find the word entrepreneur so, first of all, I think it's French. So like, Fancy Ashanti. it's very empowering to me to say entrepreneur, to say business owner versus saying freelancer, which technically some of the work I'm doing, maybe someone would consider freelance, but I consider it entrepreneurial work and this is me stepping into my own business. So I would just like to invite you to consider if you are a person who has called yourself a freelancer or engaged in freelance work. Would it feel more empowering for you to call yourself a business owner or an entrepreneur? And how would that affect how you go into negotiation on certain projects or how you show up in the world or how you market yourself online? So just thinking about that kind of thing. Okay, final two thoughts from my journal. Thank you for sticking with me through all of my messy, gorgeous thoughts. So this was one that came up that I think is interesting. And I wrote it in multiple journal entries across the past week. Go for every big guest on the podcast. Stop being afraid to reach out for people who you think are too big for you. I'm obsessed with all my guests. I want to be clear. I've gotten into a habit where there are people that will come to mind. I'm like, oh my God, they're amazing. They'd be perfect for the show. And then I'm like, oh, they wouldn't do the show. They're too big. They're too famous. And I think partly because of that amazing episode we did last week with Carly Valanci about the power of reaching out and sending emails and just asking for what you want and how beautiful that is. I've been really inspired and I've actually been reaching out to people and it's been amazing. But I've been really inspired to start asking for more in life and in all areas of my creativity. And I do want to have some guests that could bring a different perspective that are at a different level that could bring greater visibility to the show. And so I'm going to start making myself uncomfortable. And reaching out to guests. And I also want to realize, just to pep talk and kind of coach myself, which I've been catching myself doing a lot, and I think we should all be coaching ourselves, is this show isn't like a schluppy little show. It's a three-time Webby Award winner. And I think we can all get in our own way and talk ourselves down and make ourselves cower and think we're less than we are. But I gotta say, babe, it's time for us all to own it. If you've done something you're proud of, if you've got something you're proud of, If you've got a great product, Put it out there and someone's going to say yes to it. So, I mean, I've had the greatest guests. I mean, I'm just, I've had Julia Cameron on six times. Like I'm blessed, have had incredible people, but there's some people I genuinely do. Like Julia came to me, which I was very lucky with. But there's some people I'm like really holding myself back from reaching out to, or some people that said yes, but then it kind of never worked out. And I'm like, oh, it's just because, you know, they didn't really want to come on. It's like, oh, just shut up about it. Like. Stop protecting yourself. I'm talking to me. Stop protecting yourself and just ask again. They were busy. Or if they're not, they never said, no, I'm never going to do your show. It's just the scheduling never worked. So anyway, pep talk to myself. Go for every big guest on the pod and all the little ones too. And just anyone who has a great story. But I want to stop holding myself back from opportunities because I'm telling myself I don't deserve it or something. It's just not true. And yeah. the right people will come. And this is a final thing and it's call to action for you. But if you listen to my podcast or have listened to it throughout the years, would you please reach out to me and let me know? Sometimes podcasting can feel like you're shouting into the void. It can feel like kind of not thankless. I mean, I hear amazing things from you all all the time. I've met people who like quit their day jobs and went off into a creative project or who said this got them out of a very dark time in their life or... the show has gotten them out of a rut. I'm so grateful every time someone reaches out. And also, sometimes I just want to or need to hear it a little bit more. So if you could, please reach out on Instagram. It would mean a lot to me actually if you would leave us a rating and review and tell me what the show has meant to you. If you would go on Spotify and leave a comment, you can click the episode and then like write a comment from your Spotify page. But just let me know what this show has meant to you. why you keep listening, how you found it, anything that's pertinent. And we'll put a little pep in my step to keep going. I think we all need our flowers sometimes or just... a recognition and someone to hold a mirror up for you. And it would mean a lot to me if you have been a creative cutie over the years or the past few months or just a brand new one to hear about how the show has affected you, things you want to hear more of or less of on the show, and just how it can best serve you and your thoughts. So if you would be willing to do that, it would mean a lot to me. Reach out at any of those platforms. You can also email me unleashyourinnercreative at gmail.com. I appreciate you. But it really would mean a lot if you left a comment or a rating and review because those, I will read them all and also helps boost the show. So thank you for coming into the creative ramblings of a pregnant woman and woman on her creative journey. And I just adore you. I'm grateful for you. And I hope you'll come back next week. I have an amazing interview with a woman named Terry Weinberg. She's one of the producers of The Office. She's a new friend of mine. And she's just a badass. Like she's going to teach you a lot about. how to never say no to yourself, how to age into power, and the power of being an outsider. And also just great office lore. We talked about the office for like 20 minutes. It was amazing. So check that out. But in the meantime, have the most beautiful week. I love you. And I believe in you. And we'll talk next week.
