IAM036 – Postpartum Mentor Helps Mothers Struggling with Anxiety & Stress

Lauren is a Postpartum Mentor who serves mothers who are struggling with anxiety and stress in motherhood. She focuses on three foundational blocks for healing: Self Care, Time Management, Holistic Healing Alternatives.

• CEO Hack: Hands Free Mama and taking time away from your business to recharge
• CEO Nugget: Don't think you have to do it all at once. Perfect the one thing and then move on. Evaluate your business every month.
• CEO Defined: Truly in control of time. Taking risks.

Website: LaurenCecora.com
Book: https://amzn.to/2PGFgfO
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenccecora
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/laurencecora/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/206182843192874/
Online Course: https://lauren-cecora-time-management.teachable.com/p/time-mastermind-e-course

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today Lauren Cecora of LaurenCecora.com.

Lauren, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Lauren Cecora 0:38

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

I'm excited to have you on the show. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about your background so people can get more of a glimpse into who you are and some of the awesome things that you've been able to accomplish.

Lauren is a postpartum mentor who serves mothers who are struggling with anxiety and stress in motherhood. She focuses on three foundational blocks for healing, self-care, time management, and holistic healing alternatives. Lauren, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Lauren Cecora 1:08

Yes, I am.

Gresham Harkless 1:10

Awesome. Well what I wanted to do was just kind of pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional, you can tell us about your CEO story and what led you to start your business?

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Lauren Cecora 1:18

Absolutely. So after my daughter was born, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and then later on postpartum anxiety. At the time, I was working full-time in the corporate world. I'm also married to an active duty service member who happens to be on the night shift a lot of the time, and my world just kind of caved in with that diagnosis. I realized that I needed a complete overhaul of myself and that I had no real respect for self-care or time management. I did not have the tools in place that I needed to make sure that I could successfully manage motherhood as well as work.

The more I started to share my story and my struggles and what worked for us as a family, the more and more my following just kind of grew. Women wanted to know how I was kind of pulling myself out of the trenches and so that's kind of how my story started and how it's continuing to grow as of now.

Gresham Harkless 2:11

That makes perfect sense. It's interesting, because sometimes when you tell your true story, and you're being authentic, and talking about maybe some of the good things that of course you're going through, but sometimes some of the struggles, sometimes you can get a tribe, so to speak around that.

I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper to kind of hear a little bit more about like how you help those mothers that might be going through the same things.

Lauren Cecora 2:29

Yeah, absolutely. So as a postpartum mentor, a lot of people think postpartum means that it's directly following the time that you give birth, however, it's just defined as the period following birth. So there's no set end date too, anytime during postpartum. So that means when you have a kid, it could be a month down the road, 12 years down the road, you're still in that postpartum period. Mothers can kind of reach an overwhelm at different stages in their motherhood and that's kind of where my services come in.

I focus on my three foundational truths, which I know that you mentioned, self-care is very important. Self-care looks different at different stages in life. So I help women figure out what self-care means to them, and then how to implement it depending on where they are in their stage in motherhood, time management. Time management is more about finding that life balance that women are always craving, and they want to find. So it gets down to basic foundational planning and making your own personal time a priority with that self-care and so that looks different for different stages of motherhood as well.

So it's always a constant molding, ever-changing thing that I help women kind of navigate. Then my Holistic Health alternatives, I truly believe that a lot of our issues can go down to just very basic things like talking about the types of food that you eat, making sure you're getting enough water in, and then being proactive with your medical care, meaning not waiting until something's wrong to start changing things or seeking help before then. So I kind of help women navigate that spectrum based on where they are in motherhood. Through that, I have an e-course for people who just kind of need a little bit more hands-off, but still need that guidance. So that's all about building a balanced life.

I have a book for those people who are kind of bookworms, and that kind of talks you through what I experienced in postpartum depression and then what were my first five sanity-saving steps that I took to kind of start to regain my life? Then I also work with an essential oil company with helping eliminate toxins in your life, balancing hormones and things like that on a more natural, holistic platform.

Gresham Harkless 4:40

Awesome. Yeah I imagine again, like because it's such a kind of maybe somewhat of a difficult period in time, like being able to have all those resources where people can kind of make sure that they're getting the help they need in whatever ways that they can. So I think that's awesome that you've created that content and those opportunities to kind of help out those mothers.

Lauren Cecora 4:58

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 4:59

What I wanted to do what to drill a little bit deeper into like your organization, what do you feel maybe is your secret sauce? Or what do you feel makes your organization or company unique?

Lauren Cecora 5:07

I love that question. Because to me, anytime you ever talk about yourself, you're you always think, Well, I'm not this extraordinary, you know. I didn't come from like a very hard life or things like that. So I think what makes me unique is because I've had lots of different experiences in my life, it allows me to empathize with people with where they are in their struggles, without passing any sort of judgment on them. So I gave birth without my husband, my husband was deployed at the time. So I understand the hardship of being like a single mom at that point in time.

I've been laid off from several corporate jobs. So I understand trying to navigate that full-time working and trying to kind of regain your sense of self in the workplace. My husband works nights a lot. So I do a lot of solo parenting and run our household because I've had that circumstance, where I've been a working mother and a corporate job, and now I stay at home and my daughter is here full time with me until she starts school. I can kind of speak to both of those trials and tribulations that people kind of come into play and they aren't really sure what they can do differently.

So I think it makes me very unique that I have had all of these experiences so that I can mold my mentoring around whatever a woman is going through to where I can really relate to how they're feeling and what their true struggles are to help them find a solution for themselves.

Gresham Harkless 6:30

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. That's huge. The fact that a lot of times when you're going through any type of struggles or difficulties like you mentioned, you know, whether it be getting laid off, or whatever that is, sometimes you feel alone, but to be able to have the opportunity to kind of talk with somebody and have it have that feeling of kind of togetherness, or just understanding how you can get through it, and that you've been able to get through it yourself is definitely inspiring. I'm sure for those mothers and women going through stuff. You're welcome. You're welcome.

So what I wanted to do was kind of switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And a CEO hack, It might be a book, it might be an app, but the idea is that it's a resource or something that you use or lean on on a regular everyday basis that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Lauren Cecora 7:09

Okay, so that one's hard, right, we all have lots of things that make our life easier. But I'm gonna go back to kind of my roots here. This is part of one of my first sanity-saving things. I read a book, it's called Hands Free mama, by Rachel Macy Stafford. She really put things into perspective about where my time was being taken up with too much social media on my phone, and not enough being present with my husband, and then my daughter at the time. So it was kind of one of those raw truths, where it allowed me to kind of look at my life, and realize that a lot of my stress and a lot of my unraveling was because of all of those social media pressures.

So I always go back to any of her three books, she has three books, anytime I need that reminder to remind myself that it is okay to step away from my business and give myself business hours and prioritize my family first. Because then I come back even stronger as a business owner, putting my family and my own self-care and my self-healing first above everything else.

Because sometimes it's so easy to get wrapped up in everything that needs to get done about your business, we neglect the things that matter the most. So mine's a little bit unconventional, saying to take time away from your business. But I think it really makes me a very strong and I just I think it's great, I think it's, you're a resource for people.

Gresham Harkless 8:30

No, you're exactly right and a lot of times we forget, like making sure to fill up our cup, so to speak, and we're given so much of ourselves. Then sometimes we needed to take time to do that. That can come in a lot of different ways like you mentioned, spending time with your family, and making sure you're presently doing that.

So that you do have the opportunity to be when you are working on your business and doing your business, you're doing it at a higher kind of efficiency rate and higher impact than maybe you would be if you're kind of overextended or exhausted. So I think that's a phenomenal CEO hack.

I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. This might be a word of wisdom or piece of advice that you might have for other entrepreneurs and business owners.

Lauren Cecora 9:05

Absolutely. So I'm the type of person where when I want to do something, I want to jump all in feet first and just tackle everything that I can possibly do. Being my own CEO and business owner, I have to realize that I can't do it all right at that moment, and so I have to really divvy down my focus.

So my word of advice or my golden nugget to other business owners is- don't think that you have to do it all right, in this one, go find one thing to focus on and perfect it and put your time and your energy into. Learn whatever that is, whether it's a skill, or whether it's a platform, or whether it's an engagement or CEO or whatever it is or, SEO and really hone in on that before tackling something else because I think that once you can kind of perfect that one thing then it gives you even more growth and opportunity to kind of move on to that next thing.

So just take your time with it.

Gresham Harkless 10:00

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes we can get so overwhelmed because there are so many different things that we try to tackle them all at the same time. But being able to kind of focus on that, like you said that one thing and then kind of move on from there is incredible CEO nugget. I love that.

I wanted to ask you my favorite question, which is kind of like the definition of what it means to you to be a CEO. We have lots of different types of CEOs on the podcast, and I wanted to get the opportunity to hear from you exactly what being a CEO means to you.

Lauren Cecora 10:28

Okay, so again, I'm a little bit, I think, unconventional in this, I've always been a dreamer. I've always wanted to kind of life in this sort of fantasy world where I'm able to do whatever I want with my time and my money and my energy and travel a lot and just kind of do whatever I feel called to do at that time.

So being a CEO means that I am truly in control of all my time. It means that as things in our life mold and change, or as my husband's called away more for work, or he needs to spend more time away, it means that I really get to lead our family in whatever direction I feel is important at that time. So it means taking risks, and making failures in order to make me stronger. And for me, it's all about my own personal development to make me a stronger person than I was before.

Gresham Harkless 11:19

Awesome. I love that definition and everything that that means, the freedom and being able to kind of chart your own path and chart it for how you want it. So you can build the life that you want to make sure that you build.

So what I wanted to do was to give you the mic, so to speak one more time to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and our listeners know and see how best people can get a hold of you.

Lauren Cecora 11:38

Absolutely. I would also add that everyone should be spending some time evaluating their business every month. And I say every month because sometimes you can be trying to launch something or kind of work on a new skill and after working on it for a month's time, you can find out that maybe it's not a good fit for your business or maybe you need to move in a different direction. So at the end of every month, I always spend at least a day or two where I just sit and I evaluate what's working, what's not, what direction am I hoping that this new venture or new task or new learning curve will kind of take me and just kind of give myself some feedback and really look at my numbers.

Overall, I think that there's a powerful thing in evaluating yourself and really taking an honest look at what's serving you and what's not. It's okay for things to change on a monthly basis but just give yourself that space to do that so you don't become stagnant, and you're not growing anymore within your business. The best way for people to get in contact with me is through my website, which is LaurenCecora.com. I have lots of free resources, and blogs up there, ways for people to reach out to me if they have particular questions or things that they would like to kind of see what I'm offering at that time.

So that's kind of the easiest way for people to reach out.

Gresham Harkless 12:58

Awesome. Well, I truly appreciate you again, Lauren, for all the awesome things that you're doing and for being Superwoman. So if there's anything additional, you know, we'll definitely have your links for everybody in the show notes and they can get a hold of you but I truly appreciate you and everything that you're doing.

I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Lauren Cecora 13:15

Thank you so much.

Outro 13:17

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless.

Thank you for listening

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