Unlock Your Creative Power

Speaker 2: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in I'm so thrilled to introduce Lauren L graso Lauren is an actress singer songwriter executive podcast producer and host of her own podcast Unleash Your Inner creative Lauren thank you for

Speaker 3: being with us today Melanie thank you for having me you know I love you I adore the community you've created and

Speaker 2: I'm honored to be here please tell us more about who you are and we'd love to know about your most memorable career leaps and why they were memorable for

Speaker 3: you my name is Lauren I grew up in metro Detroit so we're both Midwestern girls I went to school at Michigan State I got my BFA and acting ba and communication I thought that I was only going to get a double major but but toward the end of college I realized I had 147 credit hours and you only needed 150 so I'm like I'd be insane to not do that put them both on the wall take a look say hey baby you did it so I applied to two internships one on the Ellen De generous show and one at sir M on the Broadway Station because I thought that was good collaboration of my communication degree and my theater degree I ended up getting the one on the Len show I ended up getting the one on the the Broadway Station at sirusxm to but it was a couple days after I'd gotten the Ellen show and it didn't pay so the Ellen one paid so I traveled out to LA 10 days after I finished my last class at Michigan State packed two bags and intended to stay four months it's been almost 10 years so that lasted a little bit longer than I thought after Ellen my main goal was to pursue acting that was what I wanted to do I I thought I would be the star of a sitcom on the WB lot and it would be that easy it would happen within a matter of days of finishing my internship that did not happen I did get my first professional job right after I finished the Ellen show but after that it was kind of cricket Ville USA I went on all these like sad weird auditions where I wasn't sure if I was on a reality show getting punked or if someone was plotting to murder me it was intense my first age left town without telling me I I had a series of really heartbreaking events happen with my acting career and acting started breaking my heart so from that heartbreak was born a new passion and that was music I started writing songs and I didn't know I was a songwriter until I was 23 and it was when I was falling asleep at night and that state between awake and asleep that music

Speaker 2: started coming to me I finally started writing him down I started playing the guitar my friend from college moved out to LA we started playing music together we played all these big venues within the first year of writing my first song I played House of Blues Hard Rock Cafe The Viper Room so those are amazing places really amazing places and at the same time I'm pursuing this career in music I'm also listening to SiriusXM every day on the radio and I had had a a radio show back when I was in college and I had always thought that was something I wanted to do but I didn't have a distinct plan of how I would get there and so I started listening to this radio show on SiriusXM the guy who hosted it was originally from Detroit and he would talk about all these local Detroit things and I was so homesick and depressed at the time so I would drive down the five freeway and just pretend I was back in Michigan and it was in that moment that I realized audio's power to heal and to help somebody feel less alone and I started saying I want to work at SiriusXM someday I end up quitting one of my day jobs to focus solely on music at that time I was working as a host at AfterBuzz TV as one of my many different hustles and I was able to meet Maria Munos and Kevin undergaro through them because she was about to do a Serious XM show I met the vice president of female content at SiriusXM she happened to be the person who created all the radio shows that I was obsessed with including that one that really ignited my passion so she was my radio Jesus I met her I pitched her a bunch of ideas for Maria show long story short she really created my career in broadcasting and she created a position for me at serious XM so that's what started my journey with audio I was at sirusxm producing Maria mano's show and on air with her for about two and a half years which brought me to where I am now at Cadence 13 as an executive producer and I also do my own show unleash or inner creative and for the past year I've been putting out all my singles now today in this skin I am a multi-passionate creative that's so

Speaker 3: amazing that you had so many incredible opportunities from the Ellen show to playing in the large venues to to Serious XM and encouraging and

Speaker 2: empowering female content yeah that's been my whole career is working with really strong passionate women-led shows and it's an honor one of my dreams is helping other people make their dreams come true and shining the light on other people and holding up a mirror and saying hey this is in you do you see this that's my favorite part of producing is really the coaching aspect of it and getting to bring out somebody's light it's an honor how did

Speaker 3: you find your courage throughout all those leaps what gave you the courage to say I'm going to go do this I'm going to take this chance not overthinking things

Speaker 2: because if I overthink anything I won't do it so sometimes I just have to take the leap and figure it out after and I think that's like from my move to LA to my journey into songwriting to my journey into hosting and producing I didn't know what I was doing in any of those moments I didn't know what it entailed but I said yes and then I figured it out and I think the courage came from believing that the best possible thing would happen I call myself an angsty Optimist I believe the best possible thing will happen but I like to acknowledge the pain along the way yes and I think optimism is really my coping tool and it's what has enabled me to make these shifts and I will also say having two parents that love me unconditionally has allowed me a lot more courage in the world because I know no matter what the world tries to do to me nothing can really hurt me because Joan and Mike are Mom and Dad that's so great and I think it's one of the biggest head starts any human being can have in life is unconditional love from

Speaker 3: their parents yes and what you said about appreciating the pain also makes you appreciate those winds so much more and when the winds happen you can celebrate them because you've also been through you know what the harder times are like too absolutely there have been

Speaker 2: a lot of nights of throwing myself on the ground pounding and crying and asking why God don't you love me don't you love me God it's important to talk about it right to be real about it and say that we experience those moments and we come out of them so much happier when we do when we allow ourselves to real 100% And I think if you don't share those moments everyone else thinks that your life is just perfect and has been perfect and yes I've done a lot of things but like you've actually been there with me through one of the days when I was crying and pounding the ground and asking why and like wondering what was going to become of me you've been there firsthand and seen that in me and I feel so honored that you held space face for me during that time but if we don't share these moments of the pain of putting yourself out there and being in the arena of being your full self of claiming your dream and fighting for it because not everyone's going to like it when you fight for your dream a lot of people are going to either they're not going to support you or worse yet they will stand in your way and try to stop you and so you have to want it so badly and believe in the positive outcome that you can have so much that those other things they're just roadblocks like you know my song Road to Glory it's all about getting through those roadblocks and just going because the pain doesn't outweigh the

Speaker 3: love yes and finding those people that are truly going to support you I think we're very similar in that way we're we're genuinely happy when we see others succeed yes why wouldn't you be because it's showing you something that's possible for you like if you do something amazing I'm like oh my God she's my friend she did this amazing thing I'm so happy for her and guess what now that's possible for me yes and when you show the world your true self even your ups and downs it's inspiring for other people because they see oh she

Speaker 2: accomplished something but she still has hard days yeah and if you don't have hard days are you actually putting yourself out there maybe you're not challenging yourself enough I'm not saying that life should be hard all the time I think we should definitely have flow moments but when you're putting difficult things and different things in your terrain so that you can grow you're going to have some pain points you're going to rub up against an edge of life and that's normal and natural and it sucks I hate it I hate feel feeling uncomfortable so much I want to be perfect all the time and I'm perfect zero% of the time I'm really starting to learn to live with that and even love it because if I let perfect be the enemy of good I'm never going to do any of the

Speaker 3: things I want to do 100% what gave you the courage to launch your show unleash you're inner creative and can you tell

Speaker 2: us about that yes so I had wanted to host a talk show since I was a little kid I used to set up at this table in my family room and have my mom tap me and my friend Anna we'd call it the Tony and Tina show I don't know where we got that maybe it was the makeup brand that was popular at the time so I'd had a long time dream of being a talk show host I did that Radio Show in high school and then ever since the SiriusXM thing had been ignited in me I'd really wanted to host my own show and when I was thinking of topics I went through lots of different things I landed on creativity and unleashing your inner creative because I realized all the times I've been depressed in my own life was when I had a dream on my heart or a creative Venture that I wanted to pursue and I was pushing it down and making myself smaller because I was afraid of what other people would think I was afraid to fail or I just didn't feel worthy of it and there were all these people in my life who I saw had repressed a piece of themselves or a part of their dream and were suffering for it and I came to believe that repressed creativity is one of the biggest causes of suffering in the world and so I wanted to give people tools to give them the courage to pursue their dreams to take up space to redefine their relationship with fear and take it out of the driver's seat and make creativity the filter for their life the other reason was through doing the goop podcast we had a guest who came on and he talked about how in 50 years 80% of all jobs will require creativity so it's not just this fluffy thing inter yeah right it's not just a fluffy thing that can enhance your life it's also a really necessary tangible life skill that you're going to need in order to be financially viable in the future because it's one of the few things that AI can't replicate so for those two reasons I started the show and it's been my passion and I love it you can take your creativity and even if you can't do it full-time you can create a side hustle or you can carve out time on the

Speaker 3: weekends it's so great that you are encouraging and empowering people to find that creativity and find a way to experience it in some way in their life yeah because it makes everything better and I always say creativity beets creativity so if you're being more creative in your side hustle or even if few hours on the weekend you're going to be more creative in your job you're going to be more creative in your parenting it just makes everything

Speaker 2: better yes absolutely can you tell us

Speaker 3: about your songw writing yes so my latest song and music video from my song Freak Show which is a song about mental health self love self-actualization and just owning the Beauty and the pain a lot like the things we've talked about today the music video for that premiered in People magazine which was amazing and such congratulations thank you yeah you know I don't feel like I sat with it enough because and I'm sure you relate to this as an entrepreneur you do one cool thing and then the next day you're like back in the grind we're going to celebrate that win right now I hope after this show you go do something special for yourself and say this is my

Speaker 2: celebration okay I'm really big and she built its really big on celebrating those wins big and small and sometimes you just mentioned you really have to own it you have to say this is my celebration for that win otherwise you're right as women who like to accomplish things and move on to the next thing you accompl something really big like being featured in People magazine and then you just move on to the next thing yeah exactly and there's this woman named Gala darling who you should actually meet she's all about manifestation and tapping and like female empowerment but she did this whole video about how when you don't take a moment to celebrate your big win the universe is like oh well maybe they're not ready for it cuz like they don't appreciate it and they're not celebrating it so I'm not going to give them as much of that because they're just going to move on to the next thing and not even take a moment with it it's a signal that you're not ready for the next level up if you can't even sit with this amazing thing that's happen so I am trying to do that at least a little bit tonight tell us about your inspiration

Speaker 3: behind your songwriting so my dream is to reach millions of people with my music and positively affect them with my music to help them feel less alone seen heard to help them know that they can achieve their dreams it's not too late for them to inspire the underdog to help destigmatize mental health to bring a realistic Viewpoint to love to talk about all the beauty of it but also to talk about the pain that it's not always pretty and hopefully to inspire people to be more themselves and love themselves a little bit more it's such a perfect time because what we all went through over this last year I am generally a positive person but I had days where I thought I'm really struggling today and to hear music that you're putting out tells people that they're not alone and that everyone has those days yeah and my next song is called therapy and I'd like to dedicate it to 2020 in

Speaker 2: Co you should the chorus is the amount of therapy I'm going to need after you it's going to be a big Bill it's really about an ex-boyfriend but you know I felt like it fit the bill right and I think most women listening can relate yes absolutely we've all been there once maybe twice I'll never forget it I ran out of the house after we had had a fight I go do you have any idea the amount of therapy I'm going to need after you and I went home and I instantly wrote the song there's always that one so everyone listening I know is going to be able to

Speaker 3: relate you have so much going on in your business as a producer with songwriting do you have a strategy for management and motivating your teams and the people

Speaker 2: around you so I'm really lucky I just hired an associate producer her name is Emily and she is a little me it's so cool to work with somebody who has the same vision and the same heart and the same passion and work ethic as you so my main thing whenever I work with someone whether it's for my personal projects or from work is I want to help them again achieve their dreams so I like to find out what their highlevel goal is to make sure that I'm always bringing to the table something for them as well as what they're giving to me I believe in mentorship and helping somebody be the best they can be when it comes to time management that's something I'm still completely working out right now we were talking before we got on about how both of us are bur out I am working from 8:00 a.m. until sometimes 10: p.m. at night and so I need to get my life under control right now I'm just going to be really real with you and with the listener it's a little bit too much at the moment cuz I want to have a baby someday and I also would like to get into a relationship and find love and right now there's no space for it the pandemic has made a really convenient place for me to just work around the clock and it's been good and it's definitely had its benefits but I'm realizing that I've prioritized achievement against everything else and I want to prioritize my spiritual life I want to prioritize fun I want to prioritize my relationships so I'm working toward bringing a little balance in and I I honestly think that multitasking has been a detriment to me so I'll be like trying to do you know three different things for three different projects at the same same time and that doesn't work so I think my goal for next steps will be really focusing on one thing at a time and doing it really well and then moving on to the next task because I think you can get more done by multitasking but it's probably not as sustainable and also your product on the other end isn't as good as it could be 100% before our conversation I was thinking and we were talking about feeling a little bit burnt out I need to start prioritizing my to-do list with adding in time for me and also from most important to least important because sometimes we make these huge to-do lists and we think oh we have so much to-do and we get a lot done but are we getting the things done that are the most important so at the end of the day there's a little more room for us with the recent shift in technology today and we were talking about listening to podcasts and learning from other podcast I started to learn about apps and other technology platforms from listening to podcasts are there any Tech platforms or apps that in your either business or personal life that you couldn't live without without Google Calendar I would be dead on arrival I I can't remember anything without it and I used to hear people say stuff like that when I was in college and be like I remember everything in my brain well I was like a little 20-year-old jerk I didn't know what it was going to be like in 12 years I know I say that too if it's in my calendar it'll happen if it's not it probably won't it doesn't even exist actually like my friend had had invited me to go on a zoom and she's like so are you all set for tomorrow I go what's tomorrow no I do the same way she send me the Cal sorry honey I forgot uh so definitely my calendar I love the voice notes app because that's where I record all my music when I have a music idea Clubhouse is Big I've heard a lot of people are converting that into sales and so that's a great place to network to convert to sales potentially to convert to podcast listeners if you have a podcast so that's a really good one for audio but yeah honestly I'm pretty basic I use my social media to promote my podcast so the usual Tik Tok Instagram Twitter Facebook and my calendar app and voice notes voice notes is a huge one and and honestly regular notes too so since I'm a creative person I like to always be able to have something where I can write down ideas so I have a running ideas list on my notes page on my iPhone and then I sing my potential song ideas and then when I'm actually writing them into my voice notes app that is where every song pretty much has originated there so many creative people and people who are on Tech all day who have told me they like to write they like the process of writing physically writing it down I have a notebook I do the morning pages every day I had Julia Cameron on my podcast she's known as the Godmother of creativity she was talking about this stuff in 1992 before anybody else was and she is an expert in helping people get creatively unblocked and she's really one of The Inspirations too for my podcast and my whole creative journey I had her on my show it was the biggest honor of my life and when she was on she talked about this tool in her book The Artist way called the morning pages and so it reignited this passion I had had three or four years ago when I first started the artist way every morning you wake up take out your little mol skin journal and write three pages of stream of Consciousness whatever comes to your mind so it could literally be I don't want to write I'm so sick of writing I I don't want to do this right now I'm tired or sometimes once you've been at it for a while poetry will start coming out of you or ideas for a business or the other day I was writing in there and I got an idea for a podcast and I ended up doing it and actually reading out of my morning pages in my podcast and the idea is first of all it gets all the anxiety and garbage out of your brain first thing in the morning so that you're not carrying that with you throughout the day and it's not inhibiting you and standing in the way of you and your creative Pursuit the other thing is once you get some of that garbage out or sometimes first thing an idea comes flooding onto the page and you can use that in your creative life so I definitely agree with the Merit of writing things down I went away from it for many years but now I'm back to it and every morning I meditate and then I do my morning pages and creativity has been flowing out of me a lot more songs have been coming out of me since then a lot more cool podcast topics so I highly recommend that practice if you want to

Speaker 3: try it such good advice and I've been thinking a lot about meditation too because speaking of burnout earlier today I was thinking know I think I need to get back to my meditation practice again I just look at it like a container for the the day or like a foundation it doesn't mean that life's not going to still hit you and sometimes knock you over but you have ground to stand on at least when you have some sort of morning practice standing between you and your day it's just like a little buffer between some of life's tougher moments

Speaker 2: I've had meditation Specialists on the podcast and I used to think oh I don't have an hour to meditate or 30 minutes to meditate you can meditate in short

Speaker 3: amounts of time too yeah I usually do anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes yeah that's amazing advice for busy busy women like us yes Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy I

Speaker 2: think focusing on my inner child it's easy to get away from that little self but that's where I find all my joy is when I'm dancing or when I'm singing or when I'm playing or when I'm just having a connected moment with somebody if I'm getting way too much from Little Lauren that's when I notice the depression comes or the anxiety or the drudgery the the inner child is our source of creativity it's our source of Wonder it's our source of possibility and so really honoring her kind of mothering her in a way allows me to refocus on the joy and what my deepest desires are in

Speaker 3: life and Veer away from the things that just aren't real I adore you too and you are so real and that's so important important because so often we look at people who are accomplishing things like you are and we think oh they have every day is a great day but every day is not a great day for any of us it makes it so much more fun and inspirational when we have those wins and we have those moments so thank you for being so real a

Speaker 2: well thank you for everything you do for women and for female entrepreneurs and for encouraging me and seeing me I adore you I'll always keep it real with you and yeah thank thank you for making she built it it's an amazing platform and Community Lauren please tell our

Speaker 3: listeners where they can find you so I'm on every social platform at Lauren lasso I'm at unleash yourin creative on Tik Tok Facebook and Instagram at yourin creative on Twitter and then please find me on whatever music streaming platform you use I'm really trying to build up my Spotify right now so follow me you can check me out Lauren lasso that's my artist name as well as my regular name and follow me on there so you'll be the first one to get therapy when it drops because we all need

Speaker 2: therapy if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer

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