Change your circumstances
In this week's episode, Melissa and Monica get to talk with Laura Khalil, CEO and owner of Brave by Design. Laura shares her personal journey of her professional experiences working in Silicon Valley in a male-dominated industry. Although Laura knew her craft and excelled in what she did she continued to go from job to job thinking that the next job would be a better fit for her. After realizing it was not the jobs or the people it was Laura who had the make the changes. She listened to her truth and came to accept that it was not her that was the problem it was the role she was in. In addition, after having an uncomfortable conversation with a male friend in the same industry who had the same education and experience as herself she was making $100,000 less than her counterpart. This conversation led her on a path to getting honest with herself and how she had to change her narrative in order to be successful professionally. From there Laura explains how she listened to her whispers that it was time to start following her path and own her own business. Be prepared to feel motivated and inspired. Laura is bold, brave, and transparent. She is sure to inspire and encourage you to take the steps to break out of the definition of insanity and follow your path valuing your financial worth.
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[00:00:00] Monica: Hello, fire starters. Welcome to the Kindling Project Podcast. So excited to be here with my partner in crime, Melissa. Melissa. Hey girl. What's going on?
[00:00:10] Melissa: Oh my
[00:00:11] gosh. Crazy morning. I've already launched a website and an annual report and like put out a few fires and now we're doing two podcasts today, so off to the races.
[00:00:21] Monica: Yeah, it's a big day for us. It's always fun. I love Thursdays because I feel we can just sit back and talk to some really awesome women and get their stories and you know, everyone has a story to tell and it's always fun to hear it. Speaking of stories, Mel, have you heard the whole thing about aging gracefully and I think it's called "Face?"
[00:00:41] Melissa: You know, it's showing up in my social media. I've seen the photos of her, I've kind of seen Go for it. Girl comments and also the, oh, she looks old comments and the whole thing is just icky for me. Like, you know, why can't we just let people live in their skin and make their choices and not, you know, be in the peanut gallery commenting all the time, how women look too old, too young, you know, had surgery didn't have surgery.
[00:01:04] It's too much. Right.
[00:01:05] Monica: Yeah. I mean, I see her point in the sense where maybe we've gone overboard with injectables and plastic surgery and before it was oh, she had plastic surgery now. To her point, it's like, oh, when are you getting your plastic surgery? We've shift the conversation. But I do feel like I was watching her on the Today Show or something, and I feel like she was super aggressive in the sense too from, okay, I'm an injectable girl now you're making me feel bad for wanting to care about how I'm aging.
[00:01:34] So I don't wanna make her feel bad about her choices, but I felt like she was, in many ways, Judging me and she doesn't even know me, obviously, but you know what I'm saying. That's how I felt.
[00:01:44] Melissa: Your choices, right? Like it, it's, you know what, whatever you do, it's the wrong choice if you're a female, right? And it does feel very orchestrated.
[00:01:52] These sort of, you know, these sort of like social and etiquette and cultural wars that like get drummed up. I mean, I'm really from the stance of you, do you Right? If you want injectables, if you want some plastic surgery, if you wanna age naturally. I mean it's, it does seem a little bit in my mind that the Gen X women in general are bucking some of it.
[00:02:13] I mean, of course there's probably a huge percentage doing the cosmetic procedures, but like, I also saw something I think with mini driver, like letting her hair go gray and like it's just this gorgeous steely gray head of hair anyway. Like I feel like I've been kind of letting gray come in. I've been going blonder and I'm like, yeah, I'm never gonna have that.
[00:02:32] Silver, you know, like magical mane of hair if I go gray. But I'm all for having your own choices.
[00:02:40] Monica: No, it's true. And I would love to just go gray because going to my colors every four weeks, it's getting really expensive cuz I don't know why, but I mean I am like grays every other day. It's happening really
[00:02:53] fast.
[00:02:53] Melissa: Well, I don't know if it works with your like Latina complexion, but cuz I also, I don't know if you remember, had dark brown hair and the blonder I go the easier it is to get away with the gray. Like it's just the silver in the
[00:03:05] Monica: gold just blend together better. So maybe that's why we have so many blondes in our age group.
[00:03:10] Melissa: A hundred percent. So that you don't have like a skunk stripe on the top of your head.
[00:03:15] Monica: So talking about women power and just sort of standing in your own truth. I mean, today is gas. Mel, come on. Amazing. I literally am like hello Laura. I need to be with you all the time. Can you please be my friend?
[00:03:30] It's really desperate. But she's that cool.
[00:03:33] Melissa: She is really cool, and I don't even know her that well, but I'm gonna tell my story that I reminded you guys of is that I had seen her, not met her personally, but my friend Rich has a intersectionality conference called Intermittent in Michigan.
[00:03:47] And she was the mc, I don't know, a few years ago. And I just was so impressed with her humor and her ease and it was like a tough conversation. It's not like, it's not the kind of conference that's like yoga and like gift bags, like it's hard stuff. And she just, you know, moved through the different speakers and conversations and kept people laughing.
[00:04:06] And I was like, oh, love this girl. And then, you know, COVID happened and years went by and you and I were at an event at Shinola. And we were standing at the top of a staircase checking in, and I was like, Hey, for our big event, I saw this total kick ass comedian mc woman. I can't remember her name, but my friend Rich is here.
[00:04:27] We're gonna get it from him. And she walked up the steps.
[00:04:31] Monica: I remember that. You were like,
[00:04:32] Melissa: there, she's, you gotta go up and talk to her and ask her to be on her podcast.
[00:04:37] Monica: And that's pretty much what I did. I've been stalking her ever since. So introduce her, please to our listeners. All right.
[00:04:43] Melissa: Our guest today is Laura.
[00:04:46] Kail. Laura Kail is the founder and c e O of Brave By Design. Laura helps ambitious female entrepreneurs rebalance the scales of financial justice in their favor and get paid their work. That's also what we're all about. At the Kindling Project, women Getting Paid, she combines her experience as an award-winning marketer and business strategist to help clients significantly grow their revenue without relying on endless social media dancing on TikTok or Burning Out.
[00:05:16] She's consulted for brands such as Intel, Twitter, and GE on global marketing strategy. She frequently speaks to audiences on personal branding, sales, and communication. She's spoken at WeWork. Paylocity Creative Mornings, zing train and more. She loves dogs bike rides and is addicted to butter pecan ice cream.
[00:05:35] So I mean, she's our girl. Welcome, Laura.
[00:05:39] Laura: Hi. Oh my gosh, what an intro. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here and among such amazing women, I also love the conversation you were having at the top of the show. I think we'll probably tie it into some of the things we talk about as we go.
[00:05:55] But yeah, thank you for having me and thank you for, you know, I really feel like I missed my calling as a comedian. I actually, I think like in another life, there's like, in the multiverse, I am like on stage doing comedy. So whenever I can inject humor into my work, I love to do it. So I'm glad that you found my I'm seeing it.
[00:06:17] Intermittent entertaining. That was really fun.
[00:06:19] Melissa: Oh, absolutely. Like I have a, well we, Monica and I have a good friend who's a makeup artist, but before she became a makeup artist, she was in second City in Chicago. And you kind of remind me of her a little bit. Like, I was just like, oh she's probably been like at Second City or something.
[00:06:36] Monica: Did you train at all for, to be a co comedian? Have you ever gone on stage?
[00:06:39] Laura: No. It's just it's honestly like sometimes the funniest people you'll know, and that this is true of a lot of comedians are just the people who have had like a lot of trauma. And so like the way that we deal with it is through humor.
[00:06:51] I mean, honestly, like you could probably ask more comedians about this and be like, oh yeah. I've seen some stuff. And so it's just how, you know, it's like two sides of the coin, right? Like you can either cry or you can laugh. And there's some of us who just choose to laugh because it helps us get through stuff.
[00:07:09] And then sharing that with the world, helping other people laugh through the challenges of life that aren't inevitable can really just help lighten the load. So,
[00:07:21] Monica: okay. Laura, there's so much to so many layers here that we can go in many directions, but let's just hone in on this for a moment.
[00:07:28] Okay. You say, I'm here to be your business big sister, and help you get paid fairly and rebalance the scales of financial justice in our favor. I truly believe that for fortune favors the brave. So giddy up bitches. We write a dawn. Come on. That's awesome. So what is that all about and how did you get to that statement?
[00:07:49] Yeah, I'll
[00:07:50] Laura: tell you you know, this is really through lived experience. So I spent many years cutting my teeth in Silicon Valley, working in the startup world, male dominated industry. And you know, I faced a lot of the challenges that women face. I was frequently told I needed to be nicer, I needed to smile more, I needed to stop intimidating men in the boardroom.
[00:08:09] And, you know, at the time I was like in my mid twenties and I was like, what the heck? Like these guys are way more experienced, way more knowledgeable. I felt like I'm trying to learn from them too, but I was very much penalized for those traits of being bold, assertive, ambitious, driven, a confident, you know, the things that we look for in men, and we say that's a leadership quality in women.
[00:08:36] That's a bitch. And so I, I was having a lot of problems and a lot of challenges and struggles and I was doing what I like to call collecting an unofficial PhD in getting laid off, which, by the way, I am a pro. If anyone needs to get laid off, just come talk to me. I will tell you exactly
[00:08:54] Melissa: how to do it. We lived in Silicon Valley for eight years and experienced.
[00:08:58] For, it's the culture of like, staff up, staff down, get a client, lose a client. Like the people are just, they're just resources. Not human beings. Not
[00:09:07] Laura: human. It's brutal. 2013, almost 10 years ago, actually 10 years ago, in May of 2023, I was at my last full-time gig. I was banging my head against the wall.
[00:09:20] The marketing team of which I was a part of was in complete disarray and they said, you're out. And I thought, I really had this moment where we've all probably heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. And I was doing the same thing over and over.
[00:09:38] I was going from job to job to job expecting that it would be better. But the problem was that I was too scared to do the thing I knew would help me, which was ultimately changing my circumstances. Cuz you cannot change other people. You can't, it's impossible. We've all, anyone who's been married has tried to change the partner and realized, oh, wait a minute.
[00:10:02] They're doing their own thing. And so I couldn't change my, I couldn't change others. I couldn't change my bosses. All I could do was say, I have to put myself in a different situation. And I realized there was nothing actually wrong with me. I have felt, I've never felt like there is something inherently wrong with my personality.
[00:10:24] I just felt I was in the wrong role. And so I got laid off. I had this box of stuff. I walked out of that office and I was spitting mad man. I was upset. And I said, Laura, you can be a victim of your history or a master of your destiny, and you get to decide if you're gonna keep replaying the record. Or you're gonna start a whole new track.
[00:10:49] And I said, fuck this shit. I'm starting my business. Because I knew I'd always wanted to do it. I also knew I'd always been too scared to do it. And I realized that the pain of staying the same was greater than the pain of changing, and I just could not stay the same. And by the way, in that job, to go back to your question, one of the reasons I was so upset is because I had realized in the last month that I was there that I was being underpaid by a hundred thousand dollars.
[00:11:21] I real, I thought because I was so scared to talk about money, like so many women, I did not wanna have conversations. I didn't wanna talk to my peers. And one of my colleagues husbands, we were out to dinner and I was telling him like, what was going on? And he said, what are you making? And of course I'm like, oh, I don't wanna talk about it.
[00:11:44] I don't wanna tell him. That's like so uncomfortable. And he was in the same industry as I was. We had the same amount of experience, we're the same age. Both went to great schools, a hundred thousand dollars. And like, they couldn't believe it. They were like, how are you? And I felt so embarrassed, you know?
[00:11:58] I felt like ashamed. And I felt so bad and I felt so stupid and I was like, how have I not my avoidance of this one thing? My avoidance of talking about this has put me in a situation that is, for me, it was shameful. So when I left, I was figuring out how to run a business, how to be paid really well for what I did.
[00:12:26] And I began to transform my relationship with money. And that started by talking about it. And I'll tell you just quickly what that meant for me was, like I said, when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, you will begin to transform. That transformation for me happened quick and within six weeks of leaving that job, I have my first Fortune 500 client.
[00:12:52] I had never worked with the Fortune 500 before this, and since then I only worked with the Fortune 500 consulting with them and helping build my revenue significantly along the way. I mean, so. That's the long and short of it. Maybe. Maybe that was a very long response. I just think women do not pay attention.
[00:13:10] They don't wanna talk about money. We're surrounded by other women and our peers who don't wanna talk about money cause it's impolite or you know, it's like not what we do or that's like gross. And so we stay where we are and that's exactly what the patriarchy wants. The cultural
[00:13:25] Melissa: pressure. Not to talk about money really serves some people.
[00:13:30] And you have to ask yourself why. Why can't the salary ranges be posted? And I mean, I do thank some of, like, you know, it certainly wasn't our Gen X generation that made this happen, but the millennials have been fighting for, you know, post the salary ranges. And I mean, it's just not reasonable to le, you know, to leave these giant discrepancies.
[00:13:51] Like, I always see these statistics that, you know, white women make 70 cents on the dollar of white men and then minority women make less on the dollar. And, you know, all of those numbers and those even seem low to me because look at you like you're a hundred thousand off. Right. And I know, you know, I've had a design agency for 12 years and, you know, we're women owned and I do pay people well and we have done well, but I know on some level, That we undercharge, that we overwork, that I, my male peers are getting contracts that, and they're not doing as good of work and they're not providing the level of service and it's just like something that's always there that you're fighting against.
[00:14:32] It's gawing at you
[00:14:33] Laura: always. And I will say cuz I work with a lot of women in consulting or run their own businesses now, this issue around it, it's not really even an issue of what we're worth because we, our worth is immeasurable. But how we price our services, the value we're providing to the client, how we quantify that even among successful business owners that I work with is a daily struggle.
[00:15:02] And this is actually one of the most important reasons. That I think it's important to have an advisor, a mentor, a coach, someone in your industry who's like actually knowing what's going on and can tell you, listen, I see people in your industry and I see what they're charging because I talk to them every single day.
[00:15:22] And you are way under without that perspective, we're sort of operating in a vacuum. I remember actually at the event that we were at together, which was an entrepreneur's event, there was the speaker who ca came up at the beginning and he said this great quote, which I've never forgotten. He said, an entrepreneur alone is an entrepreneur at risk.
[00:15:44] And it is so true because when we are alone with ourselves, we are operating without information, without knowledge, without support, without community, and it is a freaking lonely and dangerous place to be.
[00:16:03] Monica: I mean, it sounds like you were able to overcome that barrier, but for a lot of women, you're right, it's like they don't wanna be looked at assertive or pushy and all those things aggressive.
[00:16:13] Why do you think women in particular, is it just that, is it an optics of just wanting to be liked? Wh I don't understand why women would not raise their hands more and have those tough conversations. Men don't seem to have a problem
[00:16:27] Laura: with it. It's a great question. I think it's a really complex issue.
[00:16:30] And I think that some of the things going on, I just want, not every woman is like me or like you, Monica, or like you Mel, like everyone's a little bit different. So the first thing I wanna say is for those who are listening, who are not like me, who are not like a bull in the China shop who just wanna like, you know, That's like, okay, I would actually argue. You don't have to be like me. You actually have to be like you. Whatever it is that is natural to you. We need to see more of that. I just happen to have a lot of what we might refer to as a lot of masculine energy and drive in my work. That's just who I am as a person.
[00:17:08] But whatever's natural to you, whoever you are, whatever, however you wanna express yourself. That's okay. I gave a talk actually at intermittent prior toeing that event a few years ago called The Benefits of Being a Bitch, which is really talking about how all the things I thought penalized me were my greatest assets.
[00:17:28] All the things that penalized me as a full-time employee were my greatest assets as a leader, an entrepreneur, and I just didn't realize it. And I would challenge anyone who, if you do feel like you are the quote unquote bitch, or if you do feel like there are parts of your personality that are penalizing you, you need to bring some love into them.
[00:17:47] And you need to realize how those traits have actually served you, how they can help you move forward, and that you actually don't need to change who you are. You need to change the circumstances and the people you surround yourself with. Now, why do. Fear being themselves, whoever they are. I think there's tons of social conditioning.
[00:18:10] I think that women, going back, by the way to what you said about Justin abatement, cause I made a note about it as y'all were talking, I was like, I wanna talk about that. Women are, in many cases, the strongest of other women. We keep each other in check that to me, it's like, God bless Justin Bateman.
[00:18:31] Awesome. Do your thing, girl. Don't shit on other women. And by the way, we don't need to shit on her either. We just, like you said, just live your life, do your thing. And so we keep each other in check because we're constantly. Going after other women. We're constantly judging other women. I mean, we talk a lot about the patriarchy, but the patriarchy is put in this great structure that says women will control each other.
[00:18:55] And so if I am taught by other women that it's bad to talk about money, it's impolite that, you know, like, oh, you should just be nice. Oh my God. Just like, don't make a fuss. It's fine. It's not a big deal because that's what you see in your environment. That's what your family taught you. That's part of your quote unquote family culture.
[00:19:17] Societal culture
[00:19:18] Melissa: in your girl group teaches you, I mean, in elementary school it's like that whole crabs in a bucket. Like the girls pull each other down and it's not something I fully understand or I get, and I, and it just pains me. Like, why? Why are we our own worst critics? And why are we tearing each other apart?
[00:19:37] And it's hard enough already for us, like, let's band together. And I've told Monica this a bunch of times in the last year I joined a mastermind. It wasn't a good fit for me. I'll say that upfront. It was very heavily male oriented and turned out to be like borderline like male advocacy like, like I'm out of here dudes.
[00:19:56] So it wasn't a good fit for me. However, when I look back on what did I get out of it, the number one thing that impressed me the most is how much these dudes have each other's backs. You know, one of 'em writes a book and they fly across the country to the book signing and they buy 20 copies for their whole team, you know, and a woman writes a book and her friends are like, who does she think she is?
[00:20:20] And oh, did you see? She keeps like hawking her book on her Facebook. I'm just like, you know, one of the reasons they are able to consolidate power is they have each other's
[00:20:29] Laura: backs and they support each other and you know, so what I would say to women as a very tangible thing I tell this to business owners all the time.
[00:20:37] So if a, if you're a business owner, you don't go get advice from your business, from mommy and daddy, you do not. I mean, they're, if they're not entrepreneurs, why are you taking business advice from people who know nothing about what you do? And their primary directive is for your safety and security, not your growth and expansion.
[00:21:00] So I would say the same thing to any individual. If you are surrounded, we've all heard that quote, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you are surrounded by people who are not at least a couple steps ahead of you and have their hand out to pull you up, you are around the wrong group of people.
[00:21:19] Most of my friends, the closest people to me. Are frankly doing better than me. Financially. Their businesses are bigger than mine. I'm inspired by them, and they are the people who I pay attention to. I don't spend very much time, I mean like I love my family, but I don't, my family doesn't even know barely what I do for a living.
[00:21:43] Like they're like, I don't know. She speaks and I don't, we don't understand. It doesn't matter. I don't need their approval for it. What I need, and that's the other thing, I don't need their approval. And so think about where are you getting approval and validation. Are you constantly currying for external approval?
[00:22:00] Because what that is like filling a void. You can never get enough of it. You've gotta find it first in yourself. I'm good enough, I'm okay. And then, you know, we all need some external validation, some external feedback. But a lot of women will be like, that is my lifeline. You know, and it's like, no, you gotta give it to yourself first.
[00:22:20] Girl.
[00:22:21] Monica: I was recently talking to my very beautiful and young and smart niece, Isabella, who wants to publish a coffee book and put photos of all the bitches. Those are my mentors. That's who I wanna be. Like. I'm like, thank you girl. Good job. You post for being so young. So speaking of young, how did you come to find your voice and find your worth?
[00:22:44] Give us some little bit of background of your childhood.
[00:22:47] Laura: We're going back. Okay. Let me try to psychoanalyze myself on this podcast. You guys can help me figure it out. I grew up here in metro Detroit. My parents are Lebanese and Egyptian, and I always like to joke with people that I'm the whitest Arab anyone's ever met.
[00:23:03] If you are watching this on video, you will immediately notice. That like, you know, it's like me and the son in direct competition with each other. We're both just like so glaringly white. I have never looked like my community. I have always felt like an outsider. And this is important, and I'll get to that in a second, but I remember I asked my mom, you know, what was I like as a kid?
[00:23:25] And I was always, actually, I was pretty shy. I was, you know, once I found my people, I would, you know, kind of be a little more outgoing. But she said, you know, when you were three years old the preschool teacher like gave me some, you know, feedback or whatever. And sh the preschool teacher said, your daughter is very self possessed.
[00:23:46] I don't know where that comes from. Can you imagine a three-year-old being self-possessed? But apparently I was, like I said, in this Egyptian community primarily, I really never felt like I belonged. I didn't speak the language, I didn't look like my dad and I was constantly like I would be, we would go to like the Coptic Church here and which is Coptic, the Coptic faith is the faith primarily of Christians in Egypt.
[00:24:12] And so we'd go to the church and I remember very clearly often going, growing up and people grabbing my arm, which you can see how white it is and holding it and looking at it and saying, how is it so white? And this was like, this is like a core memory of mine is just being like, these people think I'm really different.
[00:24:32] I think that part of the reason I do the stuff I do today, Is because I didn't feel, I have always been desperate for community, for a feeling and a sense of belonging because I grew up feeling like I didn't belong. And so part of the reason that, you know, I have my own community, which is called Elevate.
[00:24:54] I do like community events and I love to speak with crowds and groups of people is because I desperately wanted that as a kid and I never got it. And so sometimes one of the things I tell people is that, you know, we do the thing that was lacking for us in childhood. We kind of, you know, reparent ourselves in that way of like becoming what we were seeking.
[00:25:21] And so I think that's what's really driven me now. I just think personality wise, I've always been like a little spitfire. I've always spoken my mind. I mean, even as a, like a kid, you know what I and that's just how I've been. Now I'll tell you, I just wanna wrap up this story about like what was going on with, you know, my community and why it looked so different.
[00:25:45] Well, the fact was that I was actually different and I didn't know it. It was when I was about 37, 38 that I went on 23 in me, and I discovered that my father who raised me was not my biological father. And I actually had nine half-siblings. My parents had to use a sperm donor because my dad could not have kids, and they never told me, even though I kind of asked them as an adult, like, come on, dad, mom, like, Meet the mailman out back or whatever, and they said no.
[00:26:23] And, but they actually had, they were just too ashamed to talk about it. And so I discovered through the process of doing that, which was a huge shock. But now I have another community and I have these amazing women who, like, there are 10 of us total, nine of us are women, and then we have one boy and this amazing community of other women.
[00:26:47] And brother Nick, I don't wanna leave him out, but of people to form a new family structure with a new group structure with. And it's it's been one of the greatest gifts of my adult life is meeting all of them. So
[00:26:59] Monica: I get the whole process of how you came to birth, but your environment was still very much traditional set in a specific culture where similar to Latinas, we are women are still.
[00:27:12] They'd like to be seen and heard, you know, not necessarily heard always. So I'm curious, you still found this voice, you're saying things that are really disruptive and you're using language that is not ladylike. That's when I raised my brow, I'm like, oh, what is she saying? I feel like you've gotta shock these women into, hey, what is happening?
[00:27:34] Wake up, what are you doing? And you do that really well. It sounds like you've just always had this spiciness about you, regardless of this traditional childhood
[00:27:44] Laura: In many ways it was a process. And to your point I didn't really mention much of that, but yeah, I grew up in a pretty traditional, you know, ethnic household, right?
[00:27:52] Like with very traditional family roles. Yo, I'm sorry, I'm going off on like 6,000 tangents. You're probably gonna be like, this is a seven hour episode, what is she doing? But I grew up in a very traditional household, and part of what I grew up with was being told, you're gonna get married. You're going to get a good job.
[00:28:12] You're going to stay at that job, and then you're going to retire, and then you're gonna die. And that was kind of like the arc, right? And then maybe you'll have kids in there somewhere. That was the arc. And so when I you know, graduated high school I did that. I got married very young. I got married at 22.
[00:28:31] I eventually did try to find like the corporate thing. I was trying to fit myself into what I was told I was supposed to be doing, which is I think where most of us start. It's like, okay. And I'm still like busting at the seams, as you can tell. I'm still me, like trying, it's like imagine a person you know in who's like a size 14 trying to fit into a size four.
[00:28:57] You know, it's like you just can't like get yourself in it, and you're just like trying to like suck it all in, you know? And that's how it kind of felt. It was like, this isn't working for me, none of it's working for me. Every woman listening to this at some point or another has had that feeling of, this doesn't work and I know it's wrong.
[00:29:18] And then the question for you become, you may not know exactly where you wanna go yet, you may not know exactly what it looks like, but you know, something needs to change. And we typically stop ourselves because we do not wanna pay the cost. There is a cost to transformation. You must be willing to let go of something.
[00:29:43] To have what is next. And I think about this a lot in the context of marriage. As someone who I was married, I had an extremely tumultuous ending of my marriage, which had me running out of my house. I was actually without a home for six weeks figuring out what to do with my life, terrified of my now ex-husband.
[00:30:05] I stayed in that marriage. Because I didn't wanna pay the cost of divorce. I was scared of, what would that mean? How would my life change? I didn't know. But you know what, like I said in the beginning, when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, I'll begin to transform. And I'll tell you, it was the best moment of my life leaving.
[00:30:26] So how do you do it
[00:30:27] Monica: when you're still, when you're so scared though you're painting this picture of you're in a situation, in a marriage. You're young, you've been doing everything your parents told you to do, so you're checking all the boxes. And now it's time where you just know there's whispers in you saying, this is not it.
[00:30:42] This is not it. And you're, when do you become brave enough? And that's interesting. That's why you named your company to do that leap and jump over that fear or squash it and still do it. How? How do you pivot?
[00:30:54] Laura: You just do it. There is never a good time. There's never a right time. There's never a better time.
[00:31:00] It doesn't exist. And I think I was waiting for it a lot and I waited for a lot it a lot in the corporate world for things to get better and things to change. And I realized I am in, you know, it's funny, when I was 27 is when I got divorced and I remember having a moment where I was very unhappy in my marriage and I remember very clearly having this moment.
[00:31:20] I was sitting on the couch a beautiful summer day and I could hear in my head a voice screaming at me. You are in the wrong timeline. Like, I literally felt like if I stay in this, I am going in a direction that I am not meant to be going in. I got, I am on the wrong timeline. It's important for women to have support.
[00:31:44] It's important whenever you do any big change in your life to have support of others who can help you through it. I certainly did, and also, by the way, even though when I left, my husband support also appeared. It's interesting what will appear when we take the leap. So like in my, in that situation, I was in a, it was a violent and scary situation.
[00:32:06] I ran out of the house with one piece of luggage and I never went back. I was staying on friends' couches and, you know, just going from place to place, trying to figure out what the heck I was gonna do with my life. And a family who, I met them over the, you know, a few months prior, I sort of knew them, but not very well.
[00:32:26] They checked in with me to see what was going on, and they actually said, Laura, our entire basement is furnished and we don't use it. We want you to come stay with us. And they took me in for most of that duration to, to live with it. Now, I didn't really know these people very well, but that's my point is like, things will appear, people will show up, and you won't realize that there's a magical thing going on here, which is really hard to describe and hard to make people feel like they're ready, which is why they don't do things.
[00:33:00] But things start to appear. The minute you change, the universe changes with you. And you can't see that before you start doing it, so you just gotta do it. So true.
[00:33:10] Melissa: When I was listening to your story, I was thinking about there's, there, there are a lot of stories like yours where there's a big catalyst, like there's an aggressive husband or an abusive situation, or a, you know, an abusive boss or a loss of a child or some big catalyst that causes a change.
[00:33:28] But I'll use myself as an example because I think that there are a lot of women who, it's not a screaming voice in their head, it's just like a little unease. It's like a quiet whisper. I mean, maybe being a people pleaser or you know, you know, maybe following the directions has been working, you know, working to such a degree that you can just kind of squash that little whisper.
[00:33:54] It's always there. But, you know, I mean, I think about in terms of like some of the expectations of women, and this is no, no choice of my own, but I think that if I'm honest, I've been able to maybe capitalize on some femininity or some expectations cuz I'm petite and I'm soft spoken. And I tend to get, like, even the men who hire me, treat me like, oh, she's so cute and funny and like, you know, it's fun when she comes around.
[00:34:21] And so I capitalize on it because, you know, we have to capitalize on what works for us. But then there's like this unease in inside of me that's like, there's something about this that's a little icky. Like, I am a badass, like I'm super creative or artistic, or I have more to offer than to just be like a little bright light for them once a month.
[00:34:41] And you know, to make them smile. And, you know, it's like, I feel sometimes like I'm gaining favor on something that, you know, I have a lot to do with, right? You don't have a lot to do with how you look or how you sound, or the mannerisms that you know, that have been acculturated into you. And so I think that there's like a whole other class of women that it's not a screaming loud voice.
[00:35:01] And Monica and I and Amy, who I'm sure you'll meet, we talk about that with the kindling projects. Sometimes it's just a little tiny fire. It's just a little tiny whisper. But if it's been annoying at you for 30, 40, 50 years, there is something else. There's something more like, you know, just like the Justine Bateman conversation.
[00:35:19] Good for you. If it's working and you just wanna sail off into the sunset, I'm not pushing anybody to be anything they don't wanna be. But I'm, I really just wanna ask the questions like, is there more for me? Is there more for you? Like, are we settling? It's an important, you know, alternate timeline to yours of, Hey, there's a whole bunch of women that, yeah, they look like they're doing just fine, but are they living their authentic
[00:35:42] Monica: self?
[00:35:43] Well, speaking of being authentic, I think what you said, Laura, about transformation, it is a it's a process that takes you to a whole new level of living your fullest self. But there's a lot of naysayers in the beginning because you're doing things that, it is really, you're going against the grain.
[00:35:58] Like, oh, you've been a certain way for x amount of years, and all of a sudden you're making a change. You are gonna have a lot of naysayers, but, you know, a lot of people, you're, you know, we crawl, walk, run with transformation and you're like, sprinting. I
[00:36:13] Laura: wanna say a couple things. First is like, I'm telling these stories that sound like, oh my God, like things changed overnight.
[00:36:21] And in some cases they did. But also remember this is like over the course of 20 years, so there's like a lot of time when things are not going right and those whispers, which I have also felt turned into screams. And so I, I do deeply resonate with that. To your point, it starts with the whisper and then it gets louder and more persistent and more persistent.
[00:36:44] And we will have a tendency to seek an external source to fix it. It's an inside job. It cannot be fixed on the outside. So it'll be like, well, maybe I need to take a vacation. Maybe I need to do more meditation. Maybe I need to do more. And these aren't bad things, but maybe you just need to be with yourself.
[00:37:05] And maybe it's about small steps in most cases, and they're often imperfect. You know, I said when I started my business six weeks later, I got that huge contract and was doing really well. That is true. I have also experienced. Profound failure in business. And it has been both. And it will, it continues.
[00:37:28] It's both. And you know, it's like success failure, and they all help me grow. You can't, we all grow right at the border of support and challenge. I can't just have one without the other. So part of what's informed me, frankly, in, in helping women grow their businesses is because I have failed at so many things and I've made so many mistakes, even with money moving forward.
[00:37:51] You know, it wasn't all fixed that it's really informed what I do today. So I think it's embracing both sides. But I would say if you're feeling the whisper, if you're feeling like something needs to change, I would just get curious and I would say to myself like, what am I not doing? Like when am I staying silent?
[00:38:10] When I wanna speak up? When am I. Acquiescing or subordinating when I actually want to say something or be something different. There's this great book called Not Nice. It is written by a psychologist. I cannot remember his name right now, but it's all about people pleasing and how people pleasers are often playing by incredible amounts of anxiety because they're constantly trying to mold themselves.
[00:38:39] To, you know, make other people feel okay and other people still don't feel okay. So then they feel even more inadequate and it's a wonderful, like I just mentioned it cause it's such a great resource and I think that there is something about going back to our, what we talked about earlier in our conversation.
[00:38:55] There's something about if it works for you. Like I said, we use every trait we have because it benefits us. And Melissa, if your traits are to be more soft spoken cuz that comes naturally to you and to use your appearance to help further things, girl fucking use it. Like I don't got any issue with it.
[00:39:15] Melissa: I don't even know if it's like a conscious decision, but I recognize it now at 50. Right. I recognize. I, did I pick any of this, like some of these things that are working for me, like they're working because society likes 'em or men like 'em, or, you know, it's non-threatening. Basically what you were saying is that you are getting this feedback of don't be threatening.
[00:39:37] And I rarely get that feedback right? Even my kids are not afraid of me and it isn't really a conscious choice. It's just how I showed up in the package. I showed up in probably how I was raised. I do have a lot of people pleasing trait, but I'm just getting to a point where I just wanna throw it off.
[00:39:55] Like I find myself in a role. Basically. I find myself in a role that has worked and whether or not it works. It doesn't mean it's a good fit for me. It doesn't mean it's really authentically my voice. You know, at an early age worked, right? That's how you got what you wanted.
[00:40:12] Laura: One of the things I've always, I always tell my clients is that, you know, we spent the first half of our life putting on masks, the mask of, in your case, mother, wife good employee, good boss, entrepreneur, whatever it may be.
[00:40:27] We put on all these masks to kind of get by to make it work, you know, and we really spent the second half of our life learning how to take them off. And that's okay. And that's a beautiful experience. And there's no rush.
[00:40:39] Melissa: We just summed up exactly what I was trying to say in one sentence. You know, it must have been, this is my 50th year right now.
[00:40:45] It was something about turning 50, like I need to shake some of
[00:40:48] Laura: this shit off. To be honest with you, I would actually use your language as a clue for what you need to do, because a lot of times we're saying what we need to do and we don't realize it. So you said, I need to shake it off, girl, get up and fucking move.
[00:41:06] If you need to shake it off, literally listen to that and say, I'm going to go move my body, and I'm not gonna move my body with my husband, with my kids, with other people that I need to manage and be around to do it. I'm gonna sit in my office or go outside during the middle of the day and I'm gonna run around and I am going to look like a lunatic and I don't care.
[00:41:31] That's what I'm talking about. Julia Cameron in the Artist Way. She writes a wonderful idea that I wanna share with the audience, which is about taking yourself without your children, without your spouse, and without your friends. For family, taking yourself once a week on a date.
[00:41:48] I loved
[00:41:48] Melissa: that book. And I did the pages, I did the morning pages for 10, 20 years.
[00:41:53] Laura: I try to do this as much as I can, and our typical reaction will be, okay, I'm gonna go do it. And then we'll immediately try to talk ourselves out of doing it. Okay, I should just go to Costco or the grocery store instead.
[00:42:04] No, go do it. Go sit at a bar, go sit at a park. Whatever you wanna try, go do it by yourself. And that will feel scary at first, but if you do it regularly, that's how we get back in touch with this beautiful, amazing woman who is looking at us in the mirror every day. And you're like, what does she want?
[00:42:28] This is a process, it's an unfolding and it's a beautiful unfolding. Even
[00:42:33] Melissa: The child is in there. I know in Michigan. Yesterday was like our first nice day, right? In forever and ever. And I had the strongest urge to go out in the backyard and jump on the trampoline. Like, but I did not do that cause I would feel like a lunatic, right?
[00:42:49] Laura: Melissa, you've gotta go do it today. You have to. That's your heart singing, saying, please help me sing my song louder. And I'm a little scared because I might look weird. And that's a very small act of courage. It has absolutely, really no consequences, right?
[00:43:09] Melissa: It has no consequences. If I jump on the trampoline in my backyard and the little boys in the house behind me think I'm a nut, like, what are the consequences?
[00:43:19] Laura: Who a shit. Even if your neighbors say adults see you, they're probably gonna look at you and be like, oh my God, she looks like she's having a lot of fun.
[00:43:26] I haven't done that. One of my
[00:43:27] Monica: favorite quotes from Wayne Dyer is Don't die with your music in you inside of you. Or some, I'm paraphrasing, but that's true what you're saying, Laura. Like, listen to that music and play it really loud. And I think I know that's what we're doing with the EEN project. We're really nudging and poking women to please sing.
[00:43:45] We are creating a stage for you. Get up there, do your thing. But you're Laura, you're such a great listener and you really pay attention to details. So I can see why you're such an amazing coach. So let's talk about your business and what you do every day to help not only women by the way you work with women and
[00:44:01] Laura: men too.
[00:44:02] Oh, my Target women, but I work with men who come in as well. So Brave By Design is really focused on helping women unlock that thing within them. In terms of business, I have a program that's called Elevate, that is a mastermind program to help women who are already running their own businesses, be surrounded by other successful women who are growing their businesses.
[00:44:28] And we also give them tools and strategies to help them get to the next level, whatever that is for them. For new businesses, I have a self-study course where they can actually learn how to get their business off the ground. It's an amazing program. And then I work with a lot of individuals on stuff like what we're talking about today, leaning into fear.
[00:44:50] Developing the habit of courage, doing these kinds of things. I keep flying my own freak flag, ladies. I mean, that's honestly what I just keep doing. And I help other women do that as well as they come in and wanna work with me on them, and especially a lot of leaders. So, I have a podcast, it's called Big Deal Energy.
[00:45:08] So if you are interested in, if you're in business, you're interested going after bigger deals, you can go read that. I've got a newsletter where I provide one tip every week for growing your business. And that's it, ladies. That's what I got.
[00:45:23] Monica: Listen, and you're a very talented writer too. I really enjoy reading you the blogs that you post, cuz you take like everyday experiences, life as is happening to you and you translate it into something that helps women grow their business or, you know, just some really helpful advice.
[00:45:39] So that's really I wanted to shout out to your blog there. It's really good. Laura, some of the things that you talk about that some of the messages in reading through your work is I picked up on a few things like allow yourself time to grow. You talk a lot about that. Like set, set a goal and allow it to almost like a garden.
[00:45:56] You gotta plant the seed, you gotta water it, you gotta tend to it. Give us some of your other fun tips.
[00:46:03] Laura: The main thing with anything in life, anything is consistency. Most of us are impatient and we want something right now because we live in a society where I can go get something right now. Life doesn't work that way.
[00:46:20] Business does not work that way. So the first thing I'll say is if whatever you're trying to do, it's gonna take longer than you think. Keep that in mind. And the only way to move forward is being consistent and focusing. Don't run around chasing freaking shiny objects. Focus on an object and spend one year on it.
[00:46:42] People talk a lot about feeling overwhelmed. They talk a lot about, oh my God, I'm just like doing so many things and I'm going in so many directions. I'm like, oh my God, how do I keep, how do I keep it all together? We do less is how we keep it together. We focus more is how we keep it together. And we take small steps every single day.
[00:47:01] This is the antidote to overwhelm, in my opinion. Women take on way too much shit. They think they can do way too much, and it's ridiculous. Again, I've done it too. It's stupid. So if you don't actually want to live that life anymore, Focus, focus, focus. Do it consistently. Like anyone would give you this if you had a weight loss goal or a weight game goal, or you wanted to run a business.
[00:47:28] It's the same tips. This is universal knowledge and I just wanna say one more thing. The laws of this universe are not super complex. It's actually pretty fucking simple. And I wanna say that because you'll meet teachers, guides, and gurus who will make you think it's harder than it is to validate why you have to work with them, because they have some sort of secret to impart on you and you have to pay for it.
[00:47:59] That is fucking snake oil. Right. It is not that hard. What you pay for help with is clarity, consistency, focus, accountability, and a partner and a co-pilot to help you as you walk through it, not because it's a secret that you can't find out on your own. That is, that's, I just say that because sometimes we see a lot of the, oh, if I learn this tool or this technique or this methodology, you don't need any of it.
[00:48:27] You just need to focus.
[00:48:29] Monica: Well, here's another Laura ism that I picked up that I already said. You don't need another certificate. You don't need another degree. You don't need a to wait for anyone to give you permission. Let's model for the next generation how good it can be to have financial power over our business and lives.
[00:48:45] I mean, you say it all the time and you live it.
[00:48:49] Laura: We are already overeducated, and by the way, black women are the most overeducated of anyone in the United States. They are so highly credentialed. It's unbelievable and it's frankly ridiculous that they're not paid what they deserve to be paid for that level of credentialing.
[00:49:05] You do not need to keep chasing credentials. This is I do a whole talk on imposter syndrome and the desire to keep going after another degree, another diploma. I'll be ready when if you ever hear yourself say, I will be ready when you are fucking lying to yourself. You are ready now. This is it.
[00:49:26] And that doesn't mean making a big life altering change necessarily in your life. It means I'm gonna get on that trampoline and I'm gonna fucking bounce my heart out. I am gonna go shake it off. I am gonna go take a walk cuz I want to. That's what it means.
[00:49:42] Melissa: 101000000%. Right? I feel like. I definitely suffer from overwhelm.
[00:49:48] I definitely suffer from people pleasing. I definitely say yes to way, way too many things. I mean, my, my calendar looks like, like a hockey painting, right? Like it's just splattered with meanings and colors and over commitment. And I am like itching to jump on the trampoline or spend a month painting or to let go of some of this shit.
[00:50:10] And even, like I was saying, like shake off some of these rules, even if the outside world would be like, why would you wanna get rid of that? It's working for you. You know, like, well, because I didn't pick it. It's not to denigrate anybody or any success of my own, it's just to shake it off to get more aligned.
[00:50:28] Right? And I think Amy and I, when we started the Kindling project we said the Kindling project is our kindling project. And our kindling project is like talking to women about like, Hey, let's put some kindling on those little fires that have been. Put out that are dimmed, that they just really actually need a little fanny.
[00:50:46] They're gonna like, they're gonna take off in every single one of us. If we just give it a little air.
[00:50:51] Monica: Do appreciate the point that you make. Like, nicheing down, I really focus and do one thing really well. I think that makes a lot of sense because to your point, I know we're having that problem ourselves with the Kindling project, but we can't be everything to everyone and we've gotta decide because we can be pulled with our online community, with, you know, specific events, which we wanna do everything.
[00:51:12] We wanna h hold larger events, we wanna have you on stage, we wanna create content, do the podcast. And at some point you start thinking, okay, go back to our why. We've gotta really understand you gotta understand your why,
[00:51:25] Laura: and then do that. Yeah. May I speak to that quickly because this is a very common challenge.
[00:51:31] Melissa: We're getting some free coaching by having you on our podcast.
[00:51:34] Laura: So like, here's what happens. We see, and I'm gonna use Oprah cuz it's a very universal example. We see the Oprahs of the world who have huge audiences, who do all, she's got a weight loss company, she's got a magazine, she's got a TV thing. You know, she's got a billion things going on.
[00:51:52] And we see that and we say, wait a minute, I'm really, I'm super inspired. I wanna be like that. And if it's not Oprah for you, pick whoever it is for you. It's someone who's, you know, big, right? And they're doing all this stuff and they're talking to all kinds of people and you think, well I wanna emulate, I wanna stand on the shoulders of giants, I wanna emulate them.
[00:52:10] Here's the problem. What nobody realizes is they didn't start that way.
[00:52:17] Melissa: And it's not an individual, it's a corporation,
[00:52:20] Laura: it's a frigging corporation. It's a huge
[00:52:22] Melissa: company. I mean, it's assigned to an individual, but these are thousands of men and women in their dreams and their visions. Being able to. Take place in the universe because
[00:52:35] Laura: of Oprah.
[00:52:36] They're not. And you're not Oprah. A hundred percent. It's like trying to go to a five. It's trying to be like, let's say a five star restaurant on like a KFC budget. You just don't have the ability to do it. And that's why we get so overwhelmed. And so I would say you don't have those resources. You have yourself and maybe a small team.
[00:52:57] If you're lucky, scale it back. And so what happens is by narrowing, by really getting narrow in the beginning, it gives us the freedom to expand. As we go. But when we start very broad in the beginning, we actually impede our ability to grow because we are trying to serve too many masters. And so narrow down in the beginning, get really clear in the beginning.
[00:53:25] And yes, it will alienate people in the beginning. But great marketing, as you all know, great marketing attracts and repels. And that's kind of the point. We gotta find our people, we gotta find our tribe, we gotta find who's right for us. And then as we grow, we can open and expand. But you cannot start that way.
[00:53:44] And that's what most people try to do. And it's. Honestly, it's what makes me crazy. So if you wanna see me get really crazy, talk about people refusing to niche out, we
[00:53:54] Melissa: might be making Monica a little crazy because I do tend to be a little bit prone to shiny objects and let's try this and let's try this.
[00:54:01] And, you know, like a mixer and a matcher and a, you know, mind changer. And it's not, you know, I'm not actually really a scatterbrain, like I do actually have a method to my madness, but I do like to try a lot of things and I kinda like to see what works and what fits. And I think there's like this nice tension between Monica and I, cuz she's a little bit more analytical and mathematical and you know, let's do the research and let's pick one thing and let's start.
[00:54:28] And so we're bouncing this sort of you know, what to do, what not to do. One thing
[00:54:33] Laura: I would just say, if I may, is that like, it all starts with like the strategy of like, okay, what are we trying to achieve in this year? Like where are we actually trying to go? And I say this more to my business clients, but I'll say it to you cuz we're talking about it.
[00:54:48] And I say this as a marketer, by the way, I'm a marketer by trade. Marketing does not get us clients. Marketing gets us awareness. It's what we do with that awareness all on the backend that gets us clients. So marketing will get people to check us out and say, oh, what are they about? What's going on here?
[00:55:08] And then they're gonna look at all of our credibility credibility markers and foundation of our business and what we do and how we help. And if that's specific enough and it talks directly to that market solving their burning problems, they're gonna say, oh, I think they're for me. We're gonna then have opportunities to earn trust with that market.
[00:55:27] And people always buy according to the amount of trust we've earned with them. But trust is earned at different rates with different people. We bring in clients, we know how to have conversations, we bring in clients, we work with them. They refer more great people to us. And it's a virtuous cycle. But what I say to all of my clients as a marketer is we get the foundation down first of who we serve, what problem we solve.
[00:55:50] Like what real burning problem do I actually solve? And who do I serve? And then we actually do all the marketing after. And what products and services do I sell? Like what is actually like, what am I doing here? And then we get that down in some v1. Then we start the marketing. But most people, and I'm not saying this is y'all, I don't know, but a lot of people will start marketing way too soon without having those things in place.
[00:56:15] And so they'll hear this, I see you everywhere. Oh my, I heard this a lot. Oh my God, you're everywhere, Laura. It looks like I see your stuff on LinkedIn. I see your newsletter. I see you here. I see you there. And I would say, but why aren't you buying? Because they kept saying, I see you everywhere, so bitch, why don't you buy a fucking product from me?
[00:56:34] What is going on with you? And it was because. I did not have a clearly enough defined target market cuz I think I'm fucking Oprah. I did not have a clearly enough to defined target market. I did not have a clearly enough defined problem that I solved. So I just got built up a bunch of awareness. It's like putting your foot on the gas, but the car is still in
[00:56:55] Monica: park.
[00:56:56] What are you focusing on
[00:56:57] Laura: this year? You know what, I'm gonna be really honest with you. We're in, we, I am in the midst of a lot of big changes and I, well, you know, it's funny because I would love to tell you more about it, but I'm still like working through what it looks like. I'll tell you this before I started Elevate, which is my program to help women grow their consulting businesses, before I started that.
[00:57:21] I was doing some work for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. I used to consult for them, and if you don't know who that is, it's not a big deal. Mythologist historian he created this thing called the Heroes Journey, which is an amazing archetype just for anyone who's listening. He's just a really cool guy, and his work really changed my life and so I consulted for them prior to this about storytelling and about how do we share our stories with the world and how do we engage in the world to reimagine our own story.
[00:57:58] And I feel right now very cold to do more of that work. So I don't know what it looks like right now. You're catching me really, I'm kind of in a dark night of the soul type situation with this stuff. I have a coach who's like, we're working on my brand and developing this, but just to be like super honest, because most people wouldn't be, they'd put on their fucking mask and be like, oh, I'm gonna tell you, fuck that shit.
[00:58:26] I, I am figuring that out right now. So Elevate is there. It's a great program. It's got great legs on it and I'm figuring out how I wanna help others tell their stories. But also, like we were talking about with the trampoline in body, cuz there's a physical felt experience that needs to happen in transformation.
[00:58:47] So I'm thinking a lot about play shops I wanna run like camps, I wanna run things I wanna do to help women play and experience and feel alive and rewrite their own personal
[00:59:00] Monica: mythology. Oh, that's so fun. Please invite us. We can't wait. Okay. Can we play a little game with you? Let's just have like a little one word association type thing.
[00:59:09] So we'll give you a couple words and you just, you say whatever comes to mind. I mean, if you wanna just stick to one word that's helpful, but, so, and Mel, jump in if you have a word. Okay. Brave design. Beauty, health
[00:59:21] Laura: Stage, all
[00:59:24] Monica: Story telling animals,
[00:59:27] Laura: cats. Which is interesting cuz I have two dogs, so now I'm feeling like, what the fuck Laura Salsa dancing kids?
[00:59:35] No. Dang. Okay. For anyone listening, I apologize. But no, not for me. I love
[00:59:43] Monica: that you know, that knowing that is so important because for so many women, you're a little bit younger than us, right?
[00:59:48] Laura: I'm almost 43 kids are not for me. However, I do feel that children appear for all of us, whether we're mothers of our own children or bonus moms or whatever.
[01:00:00] I do feel that children appear in different forms. I do feel very much a mother to my clients in the best way possible. I do feel a mother to my students. So it, it appears for me in that form, but not in the form of my own
[01:00:14] Melissa: children. And I wanna say something about this cuz I think about this as a mother.
[01:00:18] We're all raising the next generation, whether we burst them or not. And it's actually one of the it's one of the loveliest most beautiful things about having kids. And it's also one of the scariest because that means, Someone on TikTok is also raising your 14 year old boy. Right. You know, whether or not you choose parenthood, it's only part of the choice.
[01:00:41] Like, you're living, you're modeling, you're breathing, you're sharing, we're all raising the next
[01:00:47] Monica: generation. I agree. And I think about that too, Mel. I know that I've had conversations with Liz sweet daughter, or just seeing my neighbor's kids and, you know, you don't think much of it, but maybe that five or 10 minutes, the younger generation, they're paying attention or they're rolling their eyes and like we're fucking idiots.
[01:01:03] Nonetheless, they do give us you know, a minute. Yeah.
[01:01:07] Melissa: And somewhere between five and eight, they really shift the amount of attention they pay to you, to the amount of attention they pay to others. Right.
[01:01:17] Laura: You know, what's really interesting is to your point, I have these I just bought my house last year in this great neighborhood and I have these.
[01:01:25] This neighbor with kids next door. And I've started to think like, how could I be a really great neighbor to these kids? Like what? Like, because I didn't really have very engaged neighbors growing up, and I'm like, what would make like a great, you know, like, how could I be like a nice role model to them? I've been thinking a little bit about that.
[01:01:43] So I love that point. We are all mothers. To, to others. Absolutely.
[01:01:49] Monica: Laura, I've got the answer for you. Just be you. Okay. That would make you pretty amazing neighbor. Yeah. You're all set. You're all set. Yeah.
[01:01:58] Melissa: Any, and that's actually the answer for everybody.
[01:02:00] Monica: So true. So Mel, any other
[01:02:02] Melissa: questions? Oh gosh.
[01:02:03] This has been just such a fun conversation. I haven't even looked at, I haven't even looked down to be like, did we did we miss something we wanted to ask? Like, I've just enjoyed the chit chat. I agree with Monica. Sign us up. We're already fans of yours. I was already a fan of yours before I officially met you, and I feel like Our messaging and our mission is very aligned and Totally, I'm so grateful that you came and you shared all of this sort of sage advice today with our listeners.
[01:02:33] Laura: Well, thank you for having me. I mean, I know that we I just I know that I have sort of potentially led you down 4,000 different paths during this conversation, so people are like, who is this woman? What's going on with her? But that's just kinda, you know, that's life that's
[01:02:50] Melissa: real, that, you know, that's how real conversation is sometimes, you know, you have a podcast as well, so you're, sometimes you kind of start with the script and sometimes you have a guest who really wants to stick to a script and they wanna talk about their book and they don't wanna talk about their childhood.
[01:03:05] But that's really not, in my experience, especially with women, how conversation
[01:03:09] Monica: goes. And well, if you are not ready to share your story and not open up, we can't force people to do or say anything. I think Laura is just a great example of someone who shows up. You're so authentic. It shows up in everything you do.
[01:03:23] It's just who you are. And that's why I gravitate towards you because the language you use, the way you do it, you're so approachable and so relatable and you're one of us. I'm like, yes, this girl gets it. I think if not everyone has that backbone, if you will just
[01:03:41] Laura: say this, we have to have the courage to be disliked.
[01:03:44] And in fact, I know I'm disliked. I actually, I think it is a very natural law of the universe that not everyone is going to like you because let me ask you this, do you like everyone? No. And that's fucking normal as shit. That is the most normal thing on the planet to not like everyone. And so if you don't, like, if someone's listening to this and doesn't like me, that's absolutely okay.
[01:04:14] God bless you. There's somebody else out there whose message may resonate more with you. And I fully honor that. And it doesn't, again, I'm not looking to a random person to like like give me my self worth. If it resonates, awesome. If it doesn't, awesome. But I always say to my clients, you can expect about 20% of people to be fucking obsessed with you.
[01:04:37] Like they love you, they want everything to do with you. So like they're all over it. They're following you. Great. Then you're gonna have about 50% of people who are like, yeah, she's cool right now. Ok, cool. Got it, cool, whatever. And then you have a bottom, let's say about 30. Some of those people are gonna be like, that's not for me.
[01:04:56] I don't like what she says. I don't like that she swears I don't like blah, blah, blah. I don't relate to it. Great. And then you have a of that 30%, a bottom 10%. I'm gonna be like, I hate that bitch. I can't stand her. I think she is ridiculous. I think she's over the top. I hate her attitude. It's normal. And it is to be expected.
[01:05:20] You cannot please everyone. Don't try it is a losing strategy. You don't like everyone. I don't like everyone. And that's normal.
[01:05:27] Monica: Yeah. Laura, when I spent many years being offended, I'm like, ha why don't you like me? Like I'm really a nice person. And you know, it took me a minute. I'm like, you're right.
[01:05:35] Fuck you. I don't care. I'm good.
[01:05:36] Melissa: I kinda feel like two things. I want all the energy back that I put into trying to be likable to that bottom 20, 30%. And I want all the energy back I put into trying to lose weight. If I just had both of those sources of energy, you know, like if I could bottle them and give them back to myself, can you even imagine the shit I could get
[01:06:03] Monica: done?
[01:06:03] Oh, I
[01:06:03] Laura: feel that. I feel that deeply. I feel that. I feel that. I always often think to myself, if I had spent less time worrying about the number on the scale, imagine what I could have done with my life. Laura, tell everyone how to find you.
[01:06:16] Head over to Brave by design.net, all of my infos there. You can sign up for courses, you can sign up for freebies to get your business up and running and go find me on LinkedIn. Laura, will, you can go find me on there. I'm sure my name will be in the show notes and connect and say how you found me and I'd love to get to know you.
[01:06:33] Great. Okay.
[01:06:34] Monica: One final thing. We always do a final shout out, Laura, to anyone, any person, anything that happened this week that you just wanna clap it out for, say thank you. So here's your opportunity.
[01:06:46] Laura: I wanna say thank you to you all, like honestly, like this has been so cool. I'm so glad that you we, I mean, you basically found me at this event cause I wouldn't have remembered you
[01:06:58] you know, I can come on this show and I can share this stuff and I can be talking and I, cuz I have done many podcasts. I can be talking to a brick wall. I am talking to women right now who wanna engage on these conversations, who also wanna show up fully in the conversation. And that is honestly like I have so much energy right now leaving this call to help fuel the rest of my day.
[01:07:23] I wanna thank you for that because that actually fills me up. So thank you for being present. Thank you for being receptive. Thank you for sharing your stories and I love what you're doing because the Kindling project A among with these amazing fearless leaders, Running it. Like who wouldn't wanna be a part of it?
[01:07:43] Like, come on, y'all are fucking awesome bitches. Let's go.
[01:07:46] Melissa: I am gonna shout out today, this call is like, I guess we're only on Thursday, but this whole week has been confirming to me the idea of kindling. I don't know, I think I texted you last week Monica, that, oh my god, Michelle Obama's using the word Kindle.
[01:08:03] And last year when I was wanted to call this project the Kindling Project, a lot of people were like, what is that? But just this idea of putting a little kindling on fires. I, it has been confirmed to me over and over again this week, even in this conversation, oh, we're hitting on something. It's resonating.
[01:08:22] The universe, like you said, is answering the intention and women are getting it. And I'm like, this is giving me a little pep in my step. Now I don't have to explain it so many times.
[01:08:33] Monica: So my final shout out is to my niece Isabella. She's young, she's brave. And Laura some of the things that you were saying, I can't wait to have her follow you because she you know, she's so, she's gone through a lot in her very young life, has had a lot of loss, and yet she picks up herself every day and sometimes she has to put on that mask because that's all she's got for the date.
[01:08:57] But slowly but surely, we're really working hard on her never having to wear another mask in her life. So hopefully this inspires her, that we're here to help her and uplift these young people, young women who need it. Well,
[01:09:10] Laura: she's very lucky to have you, and I just think the whole community's really lucky to have you both.
[01:09:15] You are amazing. And thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.
[01:09:20] Monica: Thank you so much. And remember, it only takes one spark to ignite the fire. Thanks so much. See you next time.