Podcasts about mamaconnects

Everybody’s journey can take many twists and turns. For Leanne Kabat, those twists and turns started with an almost nuclear explosion in her life. With two toddlers and a baby on the way, Leanne got up in the middle of the night super hot and super dizzy and fell on the floor paralyzed for over five hours. Eight months later with an undiagnosed brain condition, she was told she only had five years to live. In this episode, Amber Hawley and Maelisa Hall talk with Leanne Kabat about the seasons of her business and life as Leanne opens up about her battle with a brain crash and how she was able to get her life back through MamaConnects, helping and connecting with people, and writing. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join The My Biz Bestie Community today: My Biz Bestie Facebook My Biz Bestie Instagram

How can you create an emotional connection with your audience? Even if you *think* you have a topic that doesn’t lend itself to creating an emotional connection, there are ways you can pull your audience in. Creating an emotional connection: Engages the audience and keeps them interested Builds trust with you and with each other by being vulnerable and relatable Helps them to remember what you’re teaching Gives them a way to apply what you’re sharing to themselves   In this on-air coaching call, my guest Leanne Kabat and I brainstorm about how she can create an emotional connection with her audience in her presentations. We also talk about: What happened in 2006 when Leanne was given 5 years to live Why Leanne needs to evolve her current business model to include speaking How Leanne can use her new book at speaking engagements Creating a story bank Leanne’s “a-ha” moment during our conversation Speaking packages and how to structure and price them A must-have: Why you should provide your audience with a worksheet and feedback form   → Get the free PDF download that has the story structure framework, sample workbook and feedback form I share with Leanne that she - and you - can use in your presentations. About My Guest: Leanne Kabat is the CEO and Main Mama at MamaConnects and the award-winning conference for moms called MamaCon. Each year, MamaCon celebrates the journey of motherhood by offering community, inspiration and education at events around the Pacific Northwest. A strong community is a lifeline for women raising children and balancing the complexity of life, which Leanne knows too well as she faced a medical diagnosis that gave her five years to live in 2006. Through events and her podcast called MamaConnects, Leanne nurtures a strong and vibrant community of women who support each other as they stand strong, rise up and take on life’s challenges together. Leanne’s forthcoming book is called “The 5 Seasons of Connection for Parents.”   The Speaking Your Brand podcast is hosted by Carol Cox. At Speaking Your Brand, we help women entrepreneurs and professionals create their signature talks and gain more visibility to achieve their goals. Our mission is to get more women in positions of influence and power: on stages, in businesses, on boards, in the media, in politics, and in our communities. Check out our coaching programs and workshops at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com.   Highlights: Why and how to create an emotional connection with your audience What happened in 2006 when Leanne was given 5 years to live Why Leanne needs to evolve her current business model to include speaking How Leanne can use her new book at speaking engagements Creating a story bank Leanne’s “a-ha” moment during our conversation Speaking packages and how to structure and price them A must-have: Why you provide your audience with a worksheet and feedback form   Links: Show notes and free PDF download at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/82 Leanne’s website: http://www.mamaconnects.com/ Leanne’s podcast “MamaConnects”. Join the free Speaking Your Brand community at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/join/ or text the word SPEAKING to 444-999. Sign up for a Strategy Session at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/strategy. Ready to create your signature talk and framework? Email me at carol@speakingyourbrand.com or click here to schedule a call. Say hi to me on Instagram and Twitter: @CarolMorganCox. Subscribe to the podcast and leave a review!   Other Podcasts and Episodes Mentioned: Episode 57: How to Use Simple Story Structure to Create Compelling Content Episode 81: Be a Better Speaker: Top Takeaways from Watching Presenters at Podcast Movement Podfest podcasting conference in Orlando Katie Krimitsos’ podcast Biz Women Rock My episode on the Biz Women Rock podcast: Amplify Your Message with Your Signature Talk

In this episode, I chat with Leanne Kabat about the WordPress / Libsyn integration that I use for the Tech of Business in order to help her move forward with the MamaConnects podcast. Here are the steps that we discuss: Record interview / episode Edit episode, write shownotes or takeaways Save episode as MP3 Upload episode to Libsyn Provide Libsyn with shownotes, title and other relevant podcast details Schedule episode for release at given date/time Grab libsyn embed code Start post on WordPress In text mode, paste the embed code from Libsyn Switch to Visual mode and enter shownotes Set post categories & tags Create artwork in Photoshop - 3 formats, episode artwork, Facebook, square Upload episode artwork as featured image Upload Facebook artwork to Yoast SEO social tab --> Facebook Schedule post for release at same time/date as libsyn Also mentioned on this episode: Linktr.ee: Linktree is a free tool for optimising your Instagram traffic by providing an interface to have more than one link in your bio Setup shortlinks using a redirection plugin so that this episode can be found at https://techofbusiness.com/020/ About Libsyn Liberated Syndication (libsyn) pioneered the system to host and publish podcasts in 2004. And since then has grown to the largest leading podcast network with over 2.6 billion downloads in 2014. Libsyn hosts over 25,000 shows with 44 million monthly audience members. Connect with Jaime Instagram: @techofbusiness Twitter: @techofbusiness LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/ Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com Connect with Leanne Instagram: mamaconnects Twitter: MamaCon4U Facebook: MamaConUS Website: www.mamaconnects.com

In this episode, I chat with Leanne Kabat about the WordPress / Libsyn integration that I use for the Tech of Business in order to help her move forward with the MamaConnects podcast. Here are the steps that we discuss: Record interview / episode Edit episode, write shownotes or takeaways Save episode as MP3 Upload episode to Libsyn Provide Libsyn with shownotes, title and other relevant podcast details Schedule episode for release at given date/time Grab libsyn embed code Start post on WordPress In text mode, paste the embed code from Libsyn Switch to Visual mode and enter shownotes Set post categories & tags Create artwork in Photoshop - 3 formats, episode artwork, Facebook, square Upload episode artwork as featured image Upload Facebook artwork to Yoast SEO social tab --> Facebook Schedule post for release at same time/date as libsyn Also mentioned on this episode: Linktr.ee: Linktree is a free tool for optimising your Instagram traffic by providing an interface to have more than one link in your bio Setup shortlinks using a redirection plugin so that this episode can be found at https://techofbusiness.com/020/ About Libsyn Liberated Syndication (libsyn) pioneered the system to host and publish podcasts in 2004. And since then has grown to the largest leading podcast network with over 2.6 billion downloads in 2014. Libsyn hosts over 25,000 shows with 44 million monthly audience members. Connect with Jaime Instagram: @techofbusiness Twitter: @techofbusiness LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/ Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com Connect with Leanne Instagram: mamaconnects Twitter: MamaCon4U Facebook: MamaConUS Website: www.mamaconnects.com

Hi everyone, thank you for joining us for episode 5! Today we are dipping our toe into two more Mama2Mama stories with lovely women named Erica and Janelle. They both started off saying many of the things I said when I felt ashamed I wasn’t being a good mom after my brain crash. “Everything was so hard, so overwhelming. I sat there and took it and took it, without ever asking for help. I didn’t tell any girlfriends, I didn’t tell my husband, I didn’t ask for help from anyone and the stress of my life chipped me, cracked me, and smashed me open over and over and then I felt horrible for raging out of control.” I totally understood their hopelessness. For me having this mysterious neurological condition that left me confused, exhausted, dizzy and in pain, I worried constantly that I would be seen as a failure. What if people saw how messed up I was, how I seemed weirdly confused, or completely unable to keep track of when we needed to send snack to school on our designated day? What if my kids wouldn’t be invited for birthday parties because the moms thought I was a hot mess? I was afraid so I kept it all boxed in as best I could, and it made my suffering so much harder. For Erica and Janelle, they hid from everyone because of a different shame – they felt out of control with their temper. They both felt drawn to connect with me after watching my Facebook video in March of 2017 for some encouragement, support, and help. Erica is a young mom with a young baby, and she said that throughout her whole life, she was calm and relaxed. The fury started to burn inside her shortly after her baby was born. She was ashamed to admit this to anyone because she said she must be the only one in the world who had rage when she should have been feeling like a gift from heaven lay on her lap. Many people are aware of Postpartum Depression, and signs include anxiety, sadness, no interest in the baby, thoughts of hurting yourself or baby. No one mentioned “rage” or feeling entirely out of control. Erica said that she would yell and then cry because she felt guilty for yelling. She suffered for months and her husband actually mentioned something to the nurse when they had a well-baby checkup, and the nurse suggested Erica see her own doctor for postpartum rage. Erica was fuming at him for revealing her secret but she told me that he couldn’t take the yelling and verbal abuse any longer, so it really saved her life that he did it. Baby blues affects 50-85% of women and often doesn’t require extra medical attention because it is considered the 4th trimester of a pregnancy – adjusting to life at home with a new baby while experiencing symptoms like crying, sadness, impatience. However, 1 in 7 women experience postpartum depression, and it has nothing to do with the baby blues. Post-partum depression is a mood disorder that follows typically a few weeks after giving birth and creates feelings of despair, hopelessness, scary thoughts and rage.  Everyone celebrates the cute, sweet angelic little fingers and toes, and the pediatrician checks their growth and weight, and your doctor might check your physical healing, but rarely do post-baby checkups include helping the new mama understand the emotional roller coaster of hormones, body chemistry, sleep deprivation, and fear and Erica had no idea that post partum rage was real. Janelle had a 13 year old daughter. She was out of the baby years, out of the toddler tantrums and felt pretty confident that her child was awesome, and that it was her who had come undone. Janelle would be going along on her day, waiting for Samantha to get home from school and soon after arriving, she would find herself yelling and furious about left dishes, crumbs on the counter, shoes not put away, or a faucet that was left dripping. Janelle would explode at her daughter, slam things, and then run to her room, crying and then berating herself for being such a monster.   Rage is the thief of joy, and moms suffering secretly count down the hours until bedtime, days until school starts, Saturdays when their partner can step in to parenting, school trips to have a break, the college years, anything to get through. We talked about Mom guilt in our last episode, and it hits hard here because mothers love their kids and would do anything for them, they want to be the best mom they can be, and they wish they could stay calm and cool but when they erupt, they see that as evidence that they mustn’t love their kids enough, aren’t the best, and will never be the calm, happy mom of their dreams. For both women, it was totally uncharacteristic for them to have this burning, explosive lava inside. They said they never screamed at drivers who cut them off in traffic or barked at their husbands when he said he had a great day at work before. Erica showed me her wrists that were bruised from smashing the steering wheel as she came home from getting groceries. Rage is intense and we think we go from 0 to 60 in one second because on the surface, we can seem so calm and in control, “now sweetie, stop that,” or “that’s enough” but that calmness is an illusion because in actual fact, all day we've adding heat to our fire and that 0-60 is really the overflow from a continuous chipping away at our calm reserves.   Author, speaker and parenting expert Amy McCready has created Positive Parenting Solutions, a business around a breaking point in her life when she found herself yelling more than speaking to her kids and calls herself a recovering yeller. She speaks on stages all over the country because it is one of those things that we should talk about, but we just hide in shame. But did you know that rage is a symptom? It’s a symptom of a bigger problem.  Many psychologists feel that we yell at our kids because we are feeling powerlessness. That might seem strange because we are bigger, stronger, smarter and more capable, but their defiance, or stubbornness, or refusals to help or cooperate, participate or do something we ask is a trigger that reminds us we can’t actually force them to do what we want. So we use our power to try to exert control, and one vehicle to do that is yelling because it helps re-establish us as the person holding the power, not the child. Janelle mentioned that her belief from her history was that children should be obedient, and obedient children are respectful. In her life, she learned that people who didn’t follow rules were disrespectful. So, leaving shoes out, dishes out, crumbs all over, Janelle saw her child’s disobedience as disrespect and she created a negative story to explain her daughter’s disobedience. She would say, “Sam doesn’t care enough about me to put her shoes away. She is selfish to leave her mess for me to clean up.” I asked her if there was a different story that could be possible. She really struggled, but we came up with other possibilities which put responsibility on her daughter, like her short attention span, her overloaded schedule, her knowledge that Janelle will just come in and clean up no matter what. The point isn’t to find other stories to place blame, the point is that the story Janelle was creating came from a belief she had from her childhood and may not be grounded in the current situation. We talked about seeing something that needed to be changed, and making a request. We set up this exercise for her to try. When Sam comes home, Janelle will say: “Honey, would you please put your shoes in the closet when you first take them off?” Samantha will probably say yes. Then, you can calmly state the consequence. “That works for me. If I see them out of the closet I will move them to the garage and you will not be able to leave them inside anymore. So let’s practice this. Please put your shoes on and go back outside, count to 5 and come in as if it was your first time today.” Now, her teen may moan, groan, roll her eyes, but Janelle would encourage her to do a run-through of the expectation while she watched, encouraging her and commentating the whole time. Sam will better remember the request, and knows what will happen if she doesn’t complete it the next time. Can I add a side note here? If we as parents say our kids never clean, and we yell at our kids to clean, never really outline exactly what clean means, and then flitter around like an angry Mary Poppins cleaning up around them while grumbling, why would they clean? The cost of listening to us grumble is totally worth not having to do it. Parents, you will need to stop yourself and give them the gift of committing to a request and following through – it’s a life lesson. We will have another episode on empowering our kids with some of the life lessons like cleaning and chores another time, but for now, please use the request system, one request at a time, and outline your expectation super clearly, spell out the natural consequence if the request is ignored, and then practice it. Soon, they will know the drill and when you make the request and they say yes, they know what is to come so they will just do it or they won’t and the consequence will happen.   For Erica, I was a sounding board for all the things that were hard, wrong, and overwhelming for her. We had a beautiful talk, we laughed and cried and hugged quite a few times, and then I gently and lovingly asked if she was still seeing someone for her post partum rage. She exhaled and said yes, she was taking medication short term and still seeing a therapist. I told her I was proud of her and her commitment to doing her best for herself, her child and her husband. We talked about some techniques she was learning, and I will share them here as well. -          Of course, breathing deeply from your diaphragm is key, not shallow chest breathing. In through your nose, count to three, out through your mouth, count to three. You can slowly repeat a mantra in your mind like ‘calm’, om, or ‘slow’, something that vibrates nicely in your throat. -          You can journal it out, writing your feelings is a freeing and healthy way to release the energy that anger and rage create. You can lie down in bed and visualize a place you have been to or a place you dream of going that symbolizes total relaxation, maybe a deserted beach or a remote lakeside cabin. One mama would visualize heli-skiing alone on a beautiful sunny mountain, carving through the untouched snow. One mama’s happy place was bringing her easel, canvas and paints to a busy square in Turkey and immersing herself in the sights, sounds, smells, and energy of that vibrant city. It is your dream place. It is you happy place. You can remember something you’ve done where you were filled with joy, or you can dream of something you’ve never done and wish to do. -          You can do something physical, like power walking, dancing, biking, something that takes focus and effort. -          Flood yourself with happy memories with your child. Go through old photo albums, or power up your computer and watch old videos of your child when they were tiny, fumbling around and being super cute. It’s hard to remember your child was simply the light of your life when they pushing your rage buttons like whac a mole! -          And lastly, you can reach out and connect to someone. Having someone in your life who can listen and empathize is crucial to your mental health. That may mean a friend, or in Erica’s case, it may mean a professional who helped her with her rage. There are therapists who specialize in women and moms, and are amazing at helping you release that intense emotion in a healthier way. As always, if you feel that you are looking for a community, you are in the right place. The power of community and the feeling of belonging is a core desire for us as humans, a critical component just like food and shelter and it is fundamental to our feelings of happiness and well-being. I think about how much courage it took for these women to watch my Facebook video, deem me to be someone safe, find me and allow me into their life and say, “I have a need. I’m overwhelmed and drowning in my pain. Can you help me?” But, that inspired action was all these women needed to do to absolutely change their lives and their family’s lives. That is why being connected in a community is so important! If you are looking for a community, a wonderful, warm, inviting place to ask and share and read and offer support and get support, join us in our MamaConnects private Facebook group.  It’s free and we are designing it to be a place to find encouragement, education, and inspiration on your motherhood journey. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave me a review. I am here to bring you the best ideas and stories and I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode.  Thank you and thanks for listening!

We’re going to continue to explore the topics that came up during the Mama2Mama Campaign because I think during our motherhood journey, we’ve all been in many of these places, and felt many of the feelings these women shared. Some of the non-critical information has been changed to protect the identity of the mama. Today we are going to talk about mom guilt. This theme came up in almost all conversations when women over and over told me all the ways they were failing their kids. But, the fact that these women thought they were failing their kids, most certainly meant they weren’t! I’m going to share the stories of two mamas to dig a little deeper into this powerful and paralyzing epidemic. I’m going to start with a stat. According to a recent Baby Center survey, 94% of moms confessed to feeling shame in the last 3 months. 94%! That’s unbelievable! According to authors Devra Renner and Aviva Pflock, coauthors of a book called Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids, mommy guilt is an equal-opportunity condition which strikes women of every age, every race, every economic level, in every part of the country, urban and rural. There is literally no escape from any of the three camps moms find themselves in. The moms who are “JUST” stay at home moms say they feel guilty because they quit their jobs and aren’t helping to support their families so finances are more stretched. The moms who work outside the home feel guilty because they send their kids to daycare every day and aren’t around to see all the special moments and milestones. On top of that level of guilt, a good number of moms who work outside the home feel extra guilty because they actually enjoy getting showered, dressed, and being at work, doing a good job, spending time with other adults, and getting recognition, and they think choosing their happiness and fulfillment makes them a bad mom. Finally, the moms who work from home feel guilty because they are always forced to choose between work and family and feel they do half a job on each, not really thriving in either role… and there is always more they could do for both.  Guilt is a way we have of recognizing that we have not lived up to our own values and standards, but this is 2018, and we are not setting out values and standards based on the women in our community who model good mother or good wife or good caregiver behavior. We erroneously set our values and standards based on all the beautiful people we see living fabulously perfect lives on social media and on TV. Mariana had this exact situation. She is a mom who works outside the home because first, she loves her job, and second, she makes more money than her husband so it makes sense for her family. Her mom lives with them to care for the kids, but she constantly feels like she isn’t being a good mom by leaving her kids with her elderly mother when all her friend’s kids get to go to paint pottery and take music classes and take gymnastics during the day. To add icing on this guilt-cake, her friends kept including her in texts and invites to daytime outings, knowing she couldn’t attend. They would post pictures on Facebook of all of them meeting for coffee or visits to the trampoline place and tag her with sentences like, “when you want to be a real mommy, come join us!” Mariana brushed it off at first, but the digs didn’t stop. She barely goes on Facebook anymore and doesn’t answer any texts or phone calls from this group. When she is home with her kids and she snaps at them, she suffocates herself with self-criticism and uses those instances as evidence that she is a bad mom, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Danielle works at a lower-paying job and can only make ends meet with the help of her sister, who watches Danielle’s two kids after school for a few hours, and all holidays and breaks. She thinks her sister is a good mom, but when her kids come home with bad habits or new vocabulary that she doesn’t like, she hates herself for not being their primary caregiver and hates her job even more for keeping her from what she wants more than anything, which is to live the perfect stay at home life that she sees on Instagram. Her feed is filled with pictures of cute kids and happy moms at the zoo, getting their nails done, shopping for shoes and baking cookies. I asked her what her feed would look like if she put it up on Instagram and she said it would be a messy house with piles of unfolded laundry and unwashed dishes, a stack of unopened mail, and kids sitting alone watching TV because she is cooking, paying bills, cleaning the bathroom or looking for that form that her kid needs in the morning. She asked how could she be a good mom when she barely has time to be a mom at all? Mom guilt comes in two main streams- either external or internal. External guilt comes from the burdens, judgements and criticisms of other people, and internal guilt is what we place on ourselves after comparing our life to that of other people. The strategies to shed some of the guilt is the same: First, experts recommend examining each thought as it enters our mind and check if there is something you could do about the situation differently. So, when you say, “I lost my kid’s form because I’m so disorganized and now they are mad at me and I am such a horrible mom” pause for a moment and examine that sentence. You lost your kid’s form? Or did your child hand you the form in the middle of a dozen other things and you put it down? What does this tell us? We need a system. There are two main options. One option is to create a physical space to hold this stuff. You can have an inbox or tray or folder and all forms and papers go into there and you check it regularly, fill it out, and then they can pick it up from there. For my life, that holds too many opportunities for messing up. With three kids in three schools and 5 sports, I used to lose hundreds of papers every year because I would forget to check the folder or move the tray and then everyone was lost. So I go with option 2: Put it all on them, age-appropriately. Now, I don’t let my kids hand me papers ever! At the end of the evening, after dinner, after cleanup, as we are preparing for the next day, I will ask them to check their school folders or agendas for anything they need me to pay attention to and we do it together at the kitchen table. They bring their forms to me and I sign it and they stay with me until it’s done. Oh, and I don’t fill out any forms. If they can write, they can do it. In our school district, every form needs our name, full mailing address, phone number, email, school name, teacher name, homeroom, and a bunch of other info. I hate these forms. I’ve called the district to complain about these forms. But, we get at least 3 every month so I needed a system. So, part of my rule is that my kids fill all that info out, and all I do with any form is check that it is correct and sign it. They manage it from start to finish. So, by not getting a form in the middle of dinner or booking a campsite for the summer or scheduling an appointment for their dental check up or anything else, I don’t create a situation where I can call myself a bad mom. In fact, I feel like a great mom, on top of things, modelling good systems for my kids, and getting it done the first time. So, as the experts recommend examining each thought as it enters our mind and check if there is something you could do about the situation differently, let’s think about Mariana and Danielle. For Mariana, she felt less than. She felt she wasn’t enough. She felt like she was failing. She felt this way because her friends kept pointing out how she wasn’t really a mom if she chose to work full time. That just isn’t true. She needed to tell her friends how she felt. If they were open and receptive, understanding and compassionate, they would not want to hurt their friend. When Mariana called me back with an update, they hadn’t realized how hurtful they were being and not only did they stop, but they invited Mariana’s kids along a few times so they could play with their friends while Mariana was at work. I asked Mariana if she wanted to invest in these friendships and she said yes, so I suggested she could take the lead and schedule some activities on the weekend so she could participate as well and she felt more connected and loved than she had in a long time. When her friends heard how she is the main provider for their family, they found a new respect for her and really supported her in new ways. For Danielle, what could she do differently? Well, the first thing was to do a social-media detox for a while, and put her focus on all the blessings in her life, instead of all the 'missings'. It was important for Danielle to reflect on what she wanted most for her life with her kids, and how best to achieve it. Could she change jobs to something more flexible or higher paying? Maybe, she would look into it. Could she organize her schedule so she can have easy-to-prepare meals during the week and spend more time playing board games or other activities with her kids? Yes. That was an easy one. We popped onto Pinterest and created her a page for free and easy kid’s activities, a page for freezer meals, and a page for organizing chores because her kids were old enough and could benefit from helping out around the house. When we were done, we had created a 14 day rotating meal plan with an emphasis on easy and versatile, a chore chart that everyone loved, and a daily schedule so she could spend 2 hours of quality time with her kids every night. You know what we also did? We wrote out these words for her to post on her fridge: Listen to my heart and let love lead the way. Another tip from the experts to shed the mom guilt burden is to find a community of like-minded women, with the same struggles, successes and situations as you because it will keep things in perspective. Danielle texted me that she created a dance party time every night after dinner for 15 mins and one night they didn’t have it and the kids were cranky and she was snippy and she started to feel guilty but quickly realized that she could reflect on the situation and make a change and through that thinking, she realized how important rituals were for her kids, as well as time to play together and find happiness. If you find you can’t get out from under the mom guilt at all, it might be time to chat with a professional. There are therapists who specialize in women and moms, and are amazing at helping you reframe your perspective. But, if you feel that you are looking for a community, you are in the right place. The power of community and the feeling of belonging is a core desire for us as humans, a critical component just like food and shelter and it is fundamental to our feelings of happiness and well-being. I think about how much courage it took for these women to watch my Facebook video, deem me to be someone safe, find me and allow me into their life and say, “I have a need. I’m overwhelmed and drowning in my guilt. Can you help me?” But, that inspired action was all these women needed to do to absolutely change their lives and their family’s lives. It’s not that I was some magician or superhero, it’s just that I can see things they can’t see because I bring an outsider’s perspective. That is why being connected in a community is so important! If you are looking for a community, a wonderful, warm, inviting place to ask and share and read and offer support and get support, join us in our MamaConnects private Facebook group.  It’s free and we are designing it to be a place to find encouragement, education, and inspiration on your motherhood journey. If you enjoyed this podcast, please join me in our MamaConnects Facebook group, or leave me a review. I am here to bring you the best ideas and stories and I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode.  Thank you and thanks for listening!

  Leanne Kabat is alive today, in large part, because she followed the call to pursue her deeper life's work. As an International Media Manager for Excite.com in the 90s, she oversaw partnerships in Japan, Australia and Canada. After falling and lying paralyzed on the floor for hours one night, Leanne was given 5 years to live. Until one breakthrough moment at a MamaCon conference for moms, she'd lost all hope. Leanne now owns MamaCon, as well as MamaConnects, a podcast and media company with the motto: "No Mama Should Mama Alone."   Sara and Leanne discuss: Leanne's career path Studying journalism Making documentaries Moving to Silicon Valley, California Not having working papers, as a Canadian citizen Volunteering as an editor on an Academy Award-nominated documentary Volunteering for Excite.com to manually categorize websites in the 90s Excite sponsoring her work Visa and hiring her Doing business overseas Feeling called to stay home with her new baby Excite filing for bankruptcy Moving back to Canada and then to the Seattle area Falling down, paralyzed for hours one night from a "neurological crash" Her seemingly never-ending series of medical tests Being told she had 5 years to live Starting to take a myriad of drugs Worsening symptoms Experiencing profound memory loss Counting down her remaining days Routinely forgetting to pick her son up from school Her mother-in-law coming to stay to help with the kids Reaching her breaking point The conversation that made her start living again Taking an intensive self-care year Taking her doctor's word for it that she was going to die Not having any friends Receiving an invitation to MamaCon Conference for Moms Being  blown away by her experience at the event Volunteering to be a part of the event team MamaCon helping her feel safe to feel again The MamaCon event team telling her they were out Leanne's offer to buy the company Realizing that she'd actually bought a business (oh, sh*t!) Starting to put on quarterly Mama events Feeling exhausted and realizing her own limitations Remembering her "why" of connecting women: "No mama should mama alone." Noticing moms of teens who were really struggling Launching her "Mama to Mama" campaign to help 50 women with WHATEVER they needed Finding new ways to employ her "inner researcher" Reframing her heath scare Her newfound sense of purpose The life-saving importance of community and friendships between women Becoming heart-centered This year's MamaCon: May 6, 2018 The perks of networking Her favorite networking group, Business Among Moms (BAM) Being willing to ask for help when you need it The dangers of comparison and thinking we're "not enough" Figuring out how to run a business through trial and error A surprising piece of advice she received from her cardiologist Seeing her own worth And more...   Connect with Leanne: Website: http://mamaconnects.com  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MamaConUS/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/mamacon4u   Leanne's full bio: Leanne Kabat found her professional rhythm as an International Media Manager for the Silicon Valley search engine, Excite.com, in the 90s. She was responsible for the launch and growth of web partnerships in Japan, Australia and Canada. In the summer of 2001, in the blink of an eye, Leanne had her first child, Excite filed for bankruptcy and shut down operations and Leanne and her family moved back to Canada to be closer to their relatives. In 2006, Leanne’s husband was hired by Microsoft and they left Canada and moved to Seattle. Two months later, Leanne suffered a neurological crash one night, leaving her paralyzed on the floor for hours. That incident sparked an 8 month medical investigation into this mysterious brain crash. In November of 2006, Leanne's doctors gave her 5 years to live. She started to mentally and physically shut down, checking each day off her calendar. Through one breakthrough moment at home and one breakthrough moment at a MamaCon conference for moms, everything changed. Leanne took over MamaCon and was inspired to create MamaConnects, a podcast and media company with the motto: "No Mama Should Mama Alone."