Today, we have been married for 20 years! 20 years ago we couldn’t have imagined the type of life we live today and the ways we have grown together.
We share how we thought our lives would be 20 years ago and how we hope our lives look like in the next 20 years.
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We took a month-long break from social media for our business. We were curious to see if it would change the amount of traffic to our Laurent Collective website and if it would change the amount of sales we had in the month.
The social media break was also a time for us to assess how we felt about using the platforms personally. We wondered if we spent too much time on them instead of engaging in our lives.
We came away with some thoughts and a way forward for interacting with social media but in new ways. We share these with you in this episode.
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We have no control over the things our children become interested in. Their unique interests take hold in different ways and often it’s not always the same interests we hold as parents.
So how do we encourage them in their interests and how do we engage with them in those interests?
We chat about our kids and their vast interests. It’s been a challenge when we had other ideas for what they may be interested in, but we’ve found it so rewarding to engage with their interests as it creates a bond.
Running a business takes a lot of time and we’re always looking for ways to streamline tasks. Over the past 15 plus years of our business, we’ve tried out a ton of business tools to help cut down time on common tasks.
Whether it’s setting up a website, sending out newsletters to scheduling pins, we have found some tools that help us and save us time. We share these with you in the podcast and you can download the free tools page to easily have links to the tools.
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We’re not ashamed to be in our 40s. We’ve learned so much in our lives so far that we have taken into each new stage and age.
In this podcast episode, we share about what we wish we would have taken into our lives in our 20s. In our 20s, we were really focused on our careers and climbing the corporate ladder because it meant more money to spend on more stuff.
Our perspective has changed as we’ve aged and we share these thoughts with those of you in your 20s, or in your 30s too.
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Parenting teenagers is difficult, but it’s also filled with so much joy. Trying to understand their emotions and reactions is hard, but if you can find ways to communicate openly, you can get through it.
The teen years open up so much opportunity to discuss and learn about new things together. It’s not all hard, there is so much fun with raising teens too.
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Social media is hard to keep up with and it often doesn’t help you see the results you want in your business. Is your social media bringing money to your business?
We’ve been considering quitting social media for our business and focusing on the areas that drive traffic and money to our business. We chat about the thoughts we’re in right now with the decision and how our time might be better used elsewhere.
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Staycations are a great way to stay on a budget and spend down time together as a family. They tend to get a bad rap since you’re “staying home” instead of heading someplace else for holiday, but we have found to love them.
We share some of our tips on making a staycation relaxing and true time off from work and the daily grind.
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Do you feel like you’re trying everything in your business and you’re all over the place with no focus? It’s easy to end a day or a week and realize you’ve just completed tasks, and you don’t feel fulfilled by any of it.
Finding a focus in your business is so important. It directs you and gives you a roadmap to figure out each next step. We chat about the idea of this focus and how it can help you in your business.
Do you know your focus in your business?
We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
EPISODE LINKS:
Roadmap to step out of business overwhelm - https://laurentcollectivelearning.com/step-out-of-business-overwhelm/
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Slow evenings, reading a book, knitting, sitting with candles burning, relaxing…how does that sound to you? There’s something about the idea of slowness that draws us in, that leaves us craving it. Yet we often choose the opposite, giving into filling our schedules to the brim.
In this episode we talk about how we’ve been embracing the slowness and settling into it.
How are you embracing slow and open spaces right now?
We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
EPISODE LINKS:
Judy Brown poem “Fire” - www.judysorumbrown.com/blog/breathing-space
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It can be super challenging to figure out how to share all the tasks within a household. Everything from cleaning to managing kids’ activities takes someone coordinating and taking the responsibility.
This has been a real challenge in our marriage through the years. We recently found a resource to help us talk through the household tasks and find a positive way forward. We share this resource and how it has worked for us.
How do you share household tasks in your home? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
LINKS:
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Are you preparing to end a part of your business or shut down your business completely? We experienced this with shutting down our photography business.
Closing your business, or a portion of it, can be challenging as you have so many emotions involved in the process. We share some tips and learnings from the difficult time in closing our photography business.
We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
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Our son, Zane, composed a LOFI music album called Multiversal Calm. We interview him to ask about the creation of the album.
Zane talks about the time he used to create the album and how the creativity came about for it.
We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
LINKS:
Multiversal Calm Album - https://open.spotify.com/album/50QcB6Srw773MqbsAjutFx?si=-54_nItjSf6pAAFvlONBXA
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We have been together for 24 years and married for almost 20 years. We have varying stories of how we met and how we began to date.
Each of us share our versions of how we met and laugh a lot at the differences in our stories.
How did you meet your partner? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
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Living in a small space has its challenges but we have found a small space also creates a lot of joy.
A small space has helped our family keep an eye on the amount of stuff that enters our home, makes it easier to keep clean and helps us have family time. Even though we live in a small space, it doesn’t prevent us from hosting in our home.
What do you love about the space you live in? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
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Are you confused about your creative voice? It is confusing and we’re told all kinds of mixed messages on how we discover our voice in creativity.
In this episode, we talk about some questions to ask yourself when it comes to your creative voice.
What have you found helpful in discovering your creative voice? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
Enjoy £45 off your meal delivery at
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What does the word brave mean to you? Do you picture knights and swords?
It’s not always about going into battle, rather it’s about being authentically you and trying new things, even if you fail. It’s about stepping out of comfort zones and discovering more about yourself.
What have you done that you consider brave? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
Enjoy £45 off your meal delivery at
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Are you wondering if you have to be constantly overwhelmed in your business? Maybe you’re thinking that’s just part of having a small business.
In this episode, we chat about how to realize you’re overwhelmed and then how to step out of it. We also share a free download you can get to give you steps to step out of the overwhelm of a small business.
What are you finding overwhelming in business right now? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
FREE download “Roadmap to step out of business overwhelm
https://laurentcollectivelearning.com/step-out-of-business-overwhelm/
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We’ve lived in the United Kingdom for six years and have experienced and learned so much from the culture here. There are things we have ingrained into our lives now or are at least working on making them part of our lives.
We talk about how time is different here, the importance of holiday time, an appreciation for food and travel accessibility.
What have you learned from other cultures you’ve lived in? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
Enjoy £45 off your meal delivery at
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Does it feel like you are battling technology in your house and you’d just love to see your kids do something creative?
We talk with our eleven-year-old son about what he likes about being creative. He shares the types of things we have in our house that he uses to be creative (clue: it’s nothing fancy). We also have a little chat about why we turn off the technology as parents to enable creativity to begin.
What have you found helpful in fostering creativity in your kids? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
ADVERT: Green Chef
Enjoy £45 off your meal delivery at
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Are you in a season where you feel like your focus should close by, right where you find yourself? Instead of big moves or huge goals, you feel the need to settle in and dig deep right in your home or community?
It can be a strange feeling when culture tells us to constantly be going bigger, louder and bolder. We find ourselves in this settling in place and digging deep season. We share how it feels and how we’re fighting against the pressure to do the opposite.
Are you finding yourself in a similar season? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
ADVERT: Green Chef
Enjoy £45 off your meal delivery at
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In 2016, we moved from the states to London and had to go through every single item in our house. It was hard to look at every item in our house in a new way and make decisions on what to keep and what to sell or give away.
In this episode, we share our experience to help you, whether you’re just trying to declutter your home or whether you’re moving houses. We take you through a set of questions to ask about each item and share how freeing the process can be for you.
What are your experiences with decluttering/moving? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
ADVERT: Valentines Day
Help your kids spread Valentine’s love: https://laurentcollective.com/collections/valentines-day-cards
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Saying no to new opportunities is so hard because we want to be helpful and to help others. However, we can’t say yes to everything. Saying yes to it all leaves us exhausted and unable to help in a positive way.
So how do you determine what opportunities to say no to and how do you say no in a kind way? We discuss this by taking you through some questions to ask of each opportunity and some kind ways to say no.
What are you learning about saying no? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
ADVERT: Valentines Day
Help your kids spread Valentine’s love: https://laurentcollective.com/collections/valentines-day-cards
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It can be difficult to get your kids to be on board with helping around the house. You want to help them understand responsibilities but it just seems too hard to get anyone to do anything.
We’ve had some years under our belt and have found a solution that has really worked in our family. The kids understand their responsibilities and we work together as a family team to keep the house functioning.
In this episode, we share these ideas and how you could take them into your family.
What have you found helpful with your family being a family team for your house? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
ADVERT: Valentines Day
Help your kids spread Valentine’s love: https://laurentcollective.com/collections/valentines-day-cards
These past two years have provided small businesses with ups and downs that have not followed normal trends. When you look back on your numbers to make informed decisions for the future, it’s hard to know what to focus on in the year ahead.
There is one thing that will help bring in some focus for you even if the data isn’t helping you. It’s understanding why you are in business. This will help direct you as you make decisions going forward. We chat about how this has looked in our business and how you can take decisions back to this why and purpose.
Are you struggling knowing what to focus on this year? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
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As a new year begins it can be so tempting to jump in and run after new goals and habits. Most of us are still feeling some type of exhaustion from these past few years and the idea of running into a new year sounds daunting.
We share how we’re approaching this year. Whether you do new year goals, habits or resolutions, you don’t have to hit all of them at once on January 1st. However, you can still make progress one step at time.
How are you starting off this year? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
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As you head into this holiday week, remember to stop and take a deep breath.
This week is not meant to make you exhausted. This week is meant to remember the quiet night that the world was preparing for a joyful morning.
We hope you have a restful end of the year.
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As we enter into a new year, it’s important to build rest into your schedule. Even when you think you don’t need it, our bodies need regular rhythms of rest.
We chat about what we’ll be doing in the new year to make sure we’re building in rest into our schedule.
How do you find rest? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.
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