Mother Together

This week, we sat down with our partner, friend and Tianna's former client Denai Wolfe, a virtual CFO, business strategist and owner of Profit Perfect. Denai helps successful entrepreneurs increase their profits by designing and implementing financial structure and systems. On this week's episode, Denai is sharing her story of how she left her 9-5 world and started her online business. Denai started her career in a traditional office job but always new she wanted to own a business, she just wasn't sure what that would look like. After opening a franchise (while working her 9-5), having her first baby, she ventured into the online business world and she's sharing in detail how this process went If you've ever questioned what the transition would/should look like, this episode will help you walk through the process and give you an idea of how to set up a clear plan for leaving your 9-5. Have questions for us about transitioning into a Virtual Assistant career? text us at 812-203-4244 Want to learn more about Denai? Check her out on IG here: https://www.instagram.com/thechiccfo/

If you haven't heard Ariel + Tianna say it already… contrary to popular belief, you do not need Virtual Assistant skills or experience to BE a Virtual Assistant. So what do you need? There are some key characteristics every great Virtual Assistant has. We're breaking them down in this week's podcast episode but here is a quick rundown of the characteristics we cover: 1. Motivation 2. Resourceful 3. Trustworthy/Reliable 4. Proactive 5. Organized 6.Adaptability 7. Good Communicator 8. Multi-Tasker 9. Autonomous 10. Committed

Kelsey Padigos is a Hypnotherapist, Transformational Life Coach, Entrepreneur, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner who helps you discover how to get your Sub-Conscious mind working for you & empower your self-healing abilities. Both Ariel and Tianna have worked with Kesley personally and professionally. She's been a game changer for our motherhood and our business. We're going to talk about… What hypnotherapy actually is…How as moms, we need time to unravel the chaos…What empaths are (and which one of us and our kids are empaths)What we are teaching our kidsHow God is still working in our lives and how we can work with HimYou can learn more about Kelsey from her podcast, The Confidence Company, her website: https://www.confidencecompany.org/And her IG: https://www.instagram.com/kelseypadigos/

Tianna became a single mom about a year and a half ago, after being married 7 years and having 3 beautiful babies. The last several years have been a major time of growth for her as she's made decisions to keep her and her family safe. On this week's podcast episode, we talk about everything from what changed when she became a single mom, work schedule as a single mom, how she handles burn out and getting alone time, her dating life as a single mom, the comments you can get as a single mom and her tips for moving forward with your life as a new single mama! If you want to learn more from Tianna's journey or follow along in her motherhood, make sure you follow her on IG >>> @tianna.inman

This week, we sat down with Meredyth McCauley from BELAY, our new partner in the Virtual Assistant world! We love BELAY for their work-life balance that they empower their contractors to have. BELAY celebrates moms and and has empowered so many moms to work from home as a Virtual Assistant. BELAY is an incredible Virtual Assistant agency that empowers the remote workforce, as well as the assistants that work at BELAY. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, but their team is spread out across 48 states in the U.S. because in not-so-shocking news, the workforce has changed a lot since the Industrial Revolution. We loved chatting with Meredyth to get to know BELAY more and to chat about how amazing mothers are in the Virtual Assistant role. To learn more about BELAY, check them out here.

Our inner voices are mean girls. Can you relate? In this week's Mother Together episode, we're breaking down how we tackle the the bully-side of our inner voice and ways we are working on re-training our inner voice. We're sharing the things we've come to believe from our inner voice and how we're working on breaking that belief. Join our conversation and go on this journey with us to clean up our inner voices, build our confidence and speak more life into ourselves! Want to spend more time with us talking about confidence? Check out our Untamed Confidence course for just $47 here: https://laptop-littles-school.thinkific.com/courses/untamed-confidence You don't have to listen to the mean girl inside of you. Le't's retrain your voice to celebrate the woman you are!

So we've shared that Ariel has been a 6-Figure Virtual Assistant and on today's podcast episode, we dive deeper into the story. Ariel shares exactly how she got started, the transition into making 6-figures and what type of tasks she found herself doin then and now. The beauty of Ariel's story is that it's HERS and every VA's story is different. There is no normal journey for a Virtual Assistant because you truly get to make the career work for you. Find and follow Ariel on IG and Tiktok: @ariel_naomi

Welcome back to season 2 of our Mother Together podcast! We had so much fun kicking our season off chatting to our friend and influencer, Macy Blackwell. Macy is a fellow Indiana girl, stay at home mama and lover of the social media community. She's been growing her community since 2018 and has lots of fun mom tips to share with you. We sat down to chat with Macy about how she got started and some key pieces to being an influencer. She also talks about how you can do it too :) While you're listening in, make sure you check her out on the gram: https://www.instagram.com/macy.blackwell/ You can also scroll her on tiktok: here https://www.tiktok.com/@macy.blackwell

Okay, mamas, we know we aren't alone so we're putting ourselves out there to normalize imperfect motherhood.

When Tianna and I got started in our Virtual Assistant career, the mindset shift to a business owner was never made. We made the shift to working for ourselves, making our own hourly rate, choosing what clients we work with and making our own hours. But we never completely made the transition to being a business owner. So when we had women coming to us, asking if we could teach them how to become a Virtual Assistant and work from home like we did… We would, and it would take up hours of our day. Taking time from our client work and our kids. For free. I remember being at a much needed date night with my husband and having a woman I was “coaching” calling me over and over and my husband questioned the worth of someone who while it may have been unknowingly, was taking advantage of me offering to help. He pointed out that people literally pay for “coaching” like I was offering for free but it never really crossed my mind to bring turn it into an income. When Tianna came into my life and I shared with her how I'd love to coach women, she had shifted into the business owner mindset more than I had…and said, “Let's do it.” Still, when we got onto a call with our soon to be business coach (who we paid for), Apoorva Pande…we realized even more so how far from a business owner mindset we were! And on this week's Mother Together episode, we talk with Apoorva about how lacking our mindset was then and how important it was to change that. A good mindset is a necessity for any type of growth. Business or no business.

We know how hard it is to find the right friends in motherhood. We've both been through all sorts of seasons of friendships and have been so blessed to benefit from our life wife situation. Join us in this week's Mother Together episode to hear us talk about what you should look for in your friends, how to find them and then endure us gushing over each other for a bit (sorry, not sorry!). Your season of friendship isn't over just because you're a mom, you might just need to look elsewhere for the right friend(s). We're here to support you in the meantime. Join our Mother Together FB group to get encouraged and maybe even meet your life wife: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mothertogether

“If you want to run for Prime Minister, you can. If you don't, that's wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don't shave them, wear flats one day, heels the next. These things are so irrelevant and surface to what it is all really about, and I wish people wouldn't get caught up in that. We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop. Women should feel free.” – Emma Watson Our mission at Laptop + Littles is to empower ALL women with more options. This doesn't mean we believe the option we share is the option for every woman. Tune in to hear where our passion for empowering women comes from and how we are using our platform to spread awareness on why we believe women NEED to be empowered.

We sat down with a beautiful mama this past week and we can't wait to share her incredible story with you. Bex McLennan, a mama of 6 (SIX!), shares her struggle with infertility, having an anchor during the struggle and why self-care is SO important for a mama. The amazing part of her story is that her struggle with infertility isn't over. All of her beautiful babies have been adopted through foster care, as she shares with us…and her and her husband's hearts and hands are so full. Bex has a light about her that we felt all the way through zoom and we know you'll feel it too. You can follow along with her sweet family over on instagram here: @machouseblanc

This week we sat down with our friend Jaci Watson, a beautiful soon to be mama to share her story. We laughed, cried and laughed some more as she opened up and shared for the first time. We know Jaci's story is going to speak to so many women going through their infertility journey. Feel free to share some love with our beautiful friend on IG: @_jaciwatson

Dallas is a sweet mama from North Carolina that we've been blessed to connect with through our Laptop + Littles program. She's doing amazing things in her Virtual Executive Assistant journey and has gone from her in-office job to growing her own business from home…where she gets more time with her daughter. On this podcast episode, we get to hear from Dallas, on her journey with infertility. She shares how the struggle with infertility made her feel helpless, broken and depressed. She shared her anger with God as she leaned on her relationship with Him and His promises. She shared with us on the story of Sara and how it gave her strength during the waiting period of not knowing what was going to happen. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. - Hebrew 11:11 Tune in with us and hear from Dallas herself! You can learn more about Dallas by connecting with her in IG here: @dallashathcockvirtual

National Infertility Awareness Week is April 18-24 this year and for the entire month of April, our podcast will be focused on a handful of mamas who have experienced infertility. In this week's Infertility Journey, we are talking with a fellow business owner mama, Vickie Bell, owner of Faithfully Rooted and hear about her and her husband's story of infertility that last 18 years. You can connect with Vickie through her IG: @faithfullyrooted

Hopefully, you are about to tune into this episode with a cup of coffee, tea, wine or whatever at your side. Maybe you're even getting to listen to it with NO background noise, alone in your car, in the tub, on your run…whatever it is, we hope it's being worked into some self-care for the day. Why is this so important? Same reason it's important for your kids to eat, have clean clothes, clean teeth/hair/bodies, shoes that fit, a space to feel safe, heard, themselves… It's important because your mental health matters too, mama. We know this, we just choose to put ours behind everyone else's and it's time to STOP doing that. We aren't perfect at this, so just like every conversation, we're going on this journey with you. So let's start with some self-care that we are all fairly familiar with, and that is skin care! Listen as Ariel + Tianna chat with their personal Aesthetician, Sydney Hawkins of Mira Salon and Spa Catch her on IG >>> @beautyby.sunrise

We talk with a lot of women who have partners who just can't get on board with them pursuing a career that is unfamiliar to them. We get it. New is scary but here is the thing… If your partner is unhappy in their current position and has a desire to pursue something new that would bring them joy and potentially a whole new and improved income… Then take a second to educate yourself before discouraging them from doing something you know nothing about. Feel free to poke around our site or better yet, tune into this podcast episode that we did with Ariel's husband about his perspective on the Virtual Assistant world that she entered into 8 years ago. Here is the thing: The role is STILL unfamiliar to him but Ariel's happiness, income and the impact it's had on their family, is not. Listen in as Ariel + Tianna chat with Zarod about the Virtual Assistant world, what it was like when Ariel was getting started, the first thing she spent her VA income on and how he feels about her becoming the main breadwinner in their family.

1:00 Sex after baby, what does that look like?4:45 After baby body, how do you feel?7:10 Queefing happens8:40 Why aren't you doing kegels right this second?9:50 Orgasims after baby11:00 Mindset with sex14:23 the 6-week period of no sex and still finding intimacy18:25 Communicate your needs18:45 Otherwase to be intimate20:05 Sex with your partner when you have little littles cramping your style23:10 Planning sex24:45 Spicing things up29:40 Back to mindset32:10 Calm down, Karen, this is all in the context of marriage.

We have said for a while now that we believe mothers make incredible assistants. There are many reasons for this but the gist is, moms do a LOT and they do it all at once, and sometimes clients need someone to come in and do that for their business. They need someone to come in and mother their business. And most of the things they need you to do are the same things you are doing in your day to day. Listen to our conversation about why this is and how you can take advantage of the skills you didn't realize you already have. Learn more about our coaching program here: https://www.laptopandlittles.com/allin-coaching

We are talking about boundaries... and in the Ariel + Tianna way, all of the tangents that you can go on in this conversation!

00:30 - Intro: What are boundaries, what do they mean to Ariel + Tianna01:30 - Examples of boundaries 02:45 - Setting boundaries in relationships: Spouses and Ex-Spouses/Co-Parenting05:15 - Setting boundaries in relationships: Friends14:00 - Setting boundaries in your career17:55 - Having mentors to keep you in check21:40 - Setting boundaries in your finances29:35 - Giving yourself grace and setting boundaries with your morning routine31:10 - Affirmation34:45 - Speaking kindle to yourself 37:30 - Setting boundaries with your spouse in parenthood: dating when marries39:15 - Setting boundaries with self-care44:30 - Little eyes and ears are always watching.listening45:00 - Your next steps

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Listen as Ariel, Tianna and their guest, Matt Rubacha, a Financial Advisor from Noble Industries, talks about finances and debt, plus much more on this podcast. Matt Graduated with a bachelor's science degree in computer engineering, from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He is a technological project manager for US Navy. He is also an Ordain minister with the Assemblies of God. He has held his credentials for 15 years. Matt discusses why financial literacy is important. He explains that financial literacy is a building block for achieving contentment. Matt mentions based on his experience from looking at peoples finances they are not making wise decisions by overpaying. Matt talks about how society believes the answer is if I had more money, and how individuals at any income level spend base on their income. Your expenses tend to grow when your income does. Matt discusses debt and suggests using a lender debt summary form, which he explains how to set up. Matt talk about recovering from bad financial decisions and accountability. He briefly talks about investments. Listen as Matt shares his experience and advice on finances.

If you are a new Virtual Assistant and you are wondering where to start finding clients, then listen in to this conversation Ariel had with two Laptop + Littles program members who dove right into their Virtual Assistant career and landed their own clients.

*** Warning: for 18 years and older ears only! *** Hey Mamas, we are SO excited to start this relationship with you through our brand new podcast. If you've been following along with us for some time now, you know a bit about us… But this very first Mother Together podcast episode dives into some of the fun, random stuff to let you get to know our personalities, our secrets and our go-to filler words a little better (promise to work on that last one for future episodes