Long time, no talk, huh? Welcome back to the Mama, Build Your Empire podcast. Mia's back to talk to you about coming back from our extended break, the challenges of COVID being a mom of a kid with special needs, being unapologetic, and what you can expect in the upcoming season. 

Party people!! 

Mama, Build Your Empire is back with a whole new look. I'm so excited to introduce you to Janelle Lara, the Part-Time CEO. Janelle teaches female entrepreneurs how to build successful businesses -- like getting to 6-figures and beyond, y'all -- and she shows them how to do it on part-time hours. 

I've admired Janelle so much for so long, and this was such a lovely conversation. We chatted about her business journey, some of her predictions for the industry, and what you can do *today* to bring in revenue to your business -- even if you don't have a super giant audience. 

Janelle is enrolling students into her AMAZING program, the Part-Time CEO Accelerator Program. This is a phenomenal opportunity for those of you who are looking to really start and accelerate your business. I've worked with Janelle personally, and she's completely transformed my life. 

If you want more information about the Accelerator program, you can check it out here: https://tinyurl.com/PTCEO-Accelerator 

It's been awhile since I've shared anything with you in a solo episode! So much is changing with the community, my business, and my family that I felt it was time to let you know what is shifting and what you can look forward to next! 

So, bad news, good news: 

    1.  The Mama Build Your Empire Facebook Group will be closing down. 

1. The podcast will be taking a brief pause (but only until August 22!), and will resume with 2 episodes (you heard that right!) a week: 

Tuesdays: Mama Build Your Empire Series: Input from Mia on HOW to build your business packed with actionable tips in every episode!

Thursdays: Traditional inspiring interviews with moms of kids with special needs who are also building a business and making it happen! 

So, tune in again on August 22 for some fresh new content! 

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

Dr. April J. Lisbon is an autism coach strategist and empowerment speaker who helps professional working autism moms go from feeling mentally overwhelmed and financially helpless to teaching them manageable strategies to obtain and sustain financial freedom in order to create a sustainable lifestyle for themselves and their autistic child(ren).  Dr. Lisbon knows this process is hard for many autism moms as they’re juggling so many things at once and time is NOT always on their side. She gets it as this is a battle that she too struggles with regularly. In addition, Dr. Lisbon is an international award winning author and has authored three books, “Stretched Thin: Finding Balance Working and Parenting Children with Special Needs”, “Autism in April: A Mother’s Journey During the Tween Years”, and most recently “Unmasking the Trauma: School Bullying & Children with Special Needs”. She aspires to be an influencer in her community.

April was a school psychologist when her son with autism was born, but he didn’t display any of the traditional hallmarks of autism, so she didn’t entertain the idea of this diagnosis until he was about four years old. As a mom, (not as a professional) she was not ready to face this reality. She struggled with the guilt of having missed opportunities to provide him with more services and support when she told herself “she knew better”. It was only when she chose to accept the fact that she was not going to be able to identify what caused this condition was she able to move forward in fully accepting and supporting her son. 

In this episode, she shares how weary she became of the anxiety that comes with waiting for a call from school about her son’s behavior every day. She knew something had to change and she had to become more available for her son but still bring in income. She decided to utilize her experience being both a mom and a professional to write books on being a mom of a child with autism from a unique perspective. She discusses the loneliness and grief you have to navigate when you are faced with the subtle yet ongoing rejection of a child with autism and their behavior. Dr. April wants you to know it’s ok to be selfish and pursue a serious quality of life and career but also know that you cannot use your child’s diagnosis to shirk back from the opportunities you were meant to seize. 

• How April struggled to identify and embrace her son’s autism

“What I realized was that because I was unwilling to embrace it (autism), he was unwilling to embrace it. I did not realize how my influence and my impact caused him to deny who he was as a person. He was hiding his true identity and his super power because of how I thought about it."

• Website

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

Taylor Costello is a mom to two angels in heaven (one miscarriage and one infant loss) and one baby on the way. Her daughter Lily was born on February 25th, 2018. She and her husband learned shortly after she was born that Lily would pass away before she was six months old due to a rare genetic condition. After spending 33 days in the NICU they came home to a massive amount of chaos. After some struggle, they finally found the tools they needed to get organized. This led to Taylor realizing there were other parents like them who were struggling with managing all of their children's home nursing supplies. Thus the beginning of Lily's List. Lily passed away on July 19th 2018 and Lily's List was officially born on October 1st 2018. Despite having no background in the non-profit industry, Taylor had studied psychology, and she had a deep passion to help other families like her. Six months in, the non-profit is thriving and she couldn't be more proud to share Lily's light in a world that is often very dark.

• How Taylor and her husband Joey navigated understanding the impact of Zellweger’s syndrome on their daughter’s life

“Lily gave me a good life. She really solidified that I loved being a mom, so we’re really excited to have another child, but she also gave me a whole new meaning to life and it’s just amazing and I’m very thankful for that.”

• Website

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

Taylor met her husband, Joey in high school and they began their marriage and her husband entered the marine core. They had no idea how a life of constant transition would actually prepare them for their adventure with raising children. Early on, Taylor and Joey suffered a miscarriage followed by months of infertility. Their decision to go public with infertility and IVF treatments was met with a lot of encouragement and solidarity from their community.

Though the pregnancy was normal in nature, it was obvious as soon as Lily was born, that something was not right. Lily was born blind, she had low tone, and refused to eat, among other telling signs. With the help of an expert geneticist, they were able to quickly diagnose Lily with Zellwegers Syndrome, which meant that she only had months to live. After life in the NICU, they made the transition home to a small apartment where Lily’s parents became nurses around the clock with the support of a lot of in-home health care professionals. It was exhausting and overwhelming, but the nurses provided Taylor and Joey so much emotional and practical support to weather these five months with Lily.

Losing a baby and so much purpose for each day was a lot more difficult than they ever imagined. Taylor had planned to throw herself back into work but was reminded that she had the chance to help other families who would face the same storm of caring for a child at home which led to the birth of Lily’s List. Perhaps the hardest news to hear after losing Lily was learning that Taylor and Joey’s combination of genes would most likely always result in the worst form of this disease. They opted to do IVF again in order to avoid this outcome and now are expecting another baby girl.

Networker, motivator, change-maker, Tammy Flynn is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist who never stops. Since she started her career at the age of 15, she’s launched and run more than four businesses, including direct sales beauty products, a salon and spa, an events company, and most recently, The On-Air Advocate, which supports, empowers and educates caregivers. A consummate networker, Tammy unites people while inspiring them to share their time, talent and energy with the community. A committed volunteer, she has tirelessly raised more than $500,000 for the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and Make a Wish® Foundation. Tammy Flynn’s organizational talents, energy, and resourcefulness have brought recognition from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the State of Wisconsin, radio station 99WMYX, the County of Waukesha, City of New Berlin and the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce.

Tammy comes a line of female entrepreneurs dating back to her grandmother and her mother.  At the young age of 15, Tammy entered the world of business through cosmetic sales selling beauty products door to door. She attributes a lot of her success to the generous support of mentors in her life. She had a serious tenacity at a young age having to begin her cold calls from the white pages and networking through handing out business cards at the mall. At 17, she opened up her first storefront, and she has only grown and developed her skills since then.

But as a single mom of four for 14 years, her priorities and flexibility shifted, exponentially so when her son was born with nerve breakage in his brain. It was then she realized that the typical road to success is not easy to follow when real life and trauma pop up. She knew something had to change but it was very difficult to lose her identity and role in business as she knew it at the time. She found a way to cover the bills, have insurance, and be closer to her son on a daily basis through becoming a CNA. Later she was able to return to the business, but it was an important lesson to realize what had to shift in business to meet the needs of her son as a single mom.

Tammy was very aware of the reality of life for her son once services stopped when he reached the age of 21. Tammy’s number one priority was to help her son have quality of life each and every day, even when tragedy hit and he had to cope with a collapsed spine and surgery was not an option. She is eager to encourage moms of special needs kids because she knows you will never quit having to advocate for your kids needs. She wants you to have more grace on yourself so you don’t harbor negativity and can embrace the journey for what it is.

In this episode, we cover:

• How Tammy got started as an entrepreneur as a teeenager

“Just because it’s going to be different doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad. Just because it’s not what it used to be doesn’t mean it’s not going to be beautiful. But it may not happen on the timeline you thought it was going to happen on and it may not happen in the season you thought it was going to happen in.”

• Website

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

Veronica Lamb is a health coach for busy individuals who are sick of feeling sick & how it holds them back from fulfilling their purpose.

Veronica offers a non-overwhelming path to permanent health & lifestyle change by teaching you how to tune into your body signals, eat foods that help you thrive, & establish healthy habits that work for your busy schedule. She specializes in helping you navigate food sensitivities and gut healing for yourself and infants. 

Veronica’s journey with exploring solutions to food sensitivities began with an overwhelming struggle with her son. Foods as basic as an apple could give him severe side effects for days and it became so challenging to feel “normal” among other families and children. She began by cutting out the big problem foods like dairy, wheat, and soy. Then she became even more of a detective as she discovered that things like ground pepper or quinoa were also problem foods.

As she continued to make discoveries, she was able to help co-working and friends swap out ingredients in their favorite recipes to make food safe for their kids. She realized the opportunity she had to establish doing this as a business because there are so few resources out there for families who struggle with these extreme food sensitivities. Her philosophy is based on a whole foods approach and she focuses on supporting gut health and making healthy eating easy with tools like her meal plans. She is thankful for a business that allows her to be flexible enough to respond to the unpredictable health challenges that may surface with her kids. She encourages any entrepreneurs of special needs kids out there to be reminded that your business is not your own and it doesn’t need to look exactly like anyone else's!

• How Veronica started her journey exploring extreme food sensitivities with her own children

“It’s ok for your business to not look like everybody else’s. You don’t have to schedule a week FB Live and go live at this exact time every week. You don’t have to have that level of consistency to have a business online and to gain a following. That works really great for people who have typical routines and things fit into a nice organized little box and structure. But when we have special needs kids, the unexpected happens.”

• Instagram

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

MEET THE GUEST:

Mary lives in  Parker, CO with her husband and three children.Her oldest has ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder and as a teenager was diagnosed with ODD. She herself battled OCD for many years as a teen. Along her healing journey and her son’s healing journey, she learned the importance of nourishing herself from the inside out through her diet, healthy lifestyle choices and nourishing herself so she could be the best wife and mom for her family. Along the way, Mary became a Certified  Health Coach and serves families of children with special needs through her business Tree of Life Health Coaching, a free, her blog, 1:1 coaching and group coaching. Mary’s hope is to shed these challenges and to show moms they are not alone. There are answers and there is hope.   

Mary’s story started with a very traumatic birth of her son (now 21 years old)  who was immediately unable to breastfeed well due to a later diagnosed oral aversion. She was very aware that her son was not meeting several developmental milestones and was at a loss for how to support him. He was finally labeled “failure to thrive” and diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder, for which there was a severe lack of information for at the time. When the doctor told her that if she were to quit breastfeeding, he would die, she knew that she would be the only one to find the answers needed to save her son’s life. With the help of feeding, occupational, and physical therapy, he did make a lot of improvement and even did fairly well in kinder and 1st grade, but found himself getting in trouble often with no support from the teacher. 

Mary then decided to pull her son out to homeschool him to be able to meet his educational needs and was able to address the challenges of another diagnosis: ADHD by modifying his diet using a whole foods approach. This inspired Mary to get certified as a health coach who would work with families with disorders such as ADHD, SPD, OCD, and ODD. Her approach is natural and takes the whole family into account. She utilizes the history of the child and seeks to facilitate change in the life of the child and the family. In her Facebook group, parents of kids with these special needs can ask questions, get support, and learn new techniques for natural nutrition. She welcomes all families, even those who have kids on medication. She encourages parents to always go with your gut and be confident that you know your child best when interacting with the many medical professionals you will consult along your journey.

• How Mary was able to cope with her son’s traumatic birth and sensory disorder diagnosis before internet resources were available.

"My belief is there’s a spot for nutrition, there’s a spot for natural living, even if a person has chosen to do the medication route. And I always say, it’s their child first. They know what’s best for their child."

• Website:  https://www.treeoflifehealthcoaching.net/

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

As a child, Kori was strong-willed, highly sensitive, empathetic, curious, imaginative, and a bit of day-dreamer. As an adult, she has become a caregiver and a nurturer. She is the realist who lives next door (though not always literally), a teacher (though not by degree) and researcher. She wants to be an advocate for those most in need, a mentor to those looking to find their voice, and build a community that’s accepting to all. She’s a work at home mom looking to build up my online business empire. With three children of my own (two with special needs), she draws from personal experiences and past work experience as a former assistant PreK teacher. She had once desired to pursue a career in Developmental Psychology or Communications, but when she was drawn into the world of blogging, she began to realize that she could accomplish my goals and purpose online. She also realized that she could reach more people while still being able to cultivate relationships locally if I so desired.

Kori is a mom of three children, 2 of which are special needs. Her journey started when her 21-year-old son was born three months premature with ataxic cerebral palsy and non-verbal learning disorder. Additionally, her 18-year-old daughter is autistic and non-verbal. She knew she wanted to pursue more education to become more of an expert in psychology as it relates to special needs, but she had to be more realistic about her availability when it came to caring for her children. Her blog initially began as a simple mommy blog being honest about the challenges of autism. She then realized her niche would be in bridging the gap between the extremes that existed on the spectrum, focusing on the day-to-day challenges, and the future of life with an autistic child. She challenges any parents with kids with special needs to embrace every day and remember that no victory is too small to celebrate. She also cheers you on to pursue your next step to develop yourself, whatever that may be!

• How Kori navigated the isolation of not being able to connect with parents with neuro-typical kids.

“I wanted to design a business and a lifestyle that worked around all of the intricacies, the ins and outs, and sometimes just the instability and unpredictable parts of our lives and our schedule instead of having to fit our family’s lifestyle and schedule into a business and into whatever my career would have ended up looking like if I was working outside the home.”

• Blog: https://koriathome.com

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

Sarah Allison is the founder and CEO of Mother of Marketing. She’s been in marketing for more than eight years and transformed her digital side hustle into a full-time work-from-home job just three years ago. She started out making a measly $32,000 a year at a marketing agency as successfully tripled her income when she left her job in 2015 to start her own business.

Mother of Marketing is all about helping young business owners and entrepreneurs navigate life, marketing, and how to build a business they love. When Sarah first started her business, she had no idea what she was doing except when it came to how to market brands and bloggers. She had to navigate business ownership on her own and find a way to break the freelancer wheel along the way. Sarah wants you to know you are not alone in your journey, and together we can help make your world a better place.

Sarah’s journey with business and parenting began at about the same time when she found out she was pregnant with her son while in art school. She quickly switched her major to marketing, another passion of hers, in order to be more financially independent in a career. When she found herself divorced, living with family, and barely making ends meet, she decided something had to change. Sarah got a job at a marketing agency where she learned a lot and was very successful, but her boss had ridiculous demands on a single mother to travel for work. She quickly built up a clientele on the side and quit her 9-5 (with gusto!).

She dove into freelancing working something close to eighty hours a week, overwhelmed with work and her inability to connect to her son. As Sarah was certain that he needed developmental support on some level, the evaluations concluded that her son had a severe speech delay, and months later came the official autism diagnosis. She quickly dove into action mode in securing services and support for her son and even took some time off of her master's program to get it all done. Nothing about parenting a kid with special needs is easy or inexpensive, but Sarah is thankful for her support network and a job that allows her the flexibility to meet her son’s needs in whatever form they come. As the Mother of Marketing (a brand inspired by her love of Game of Thrones), she teaches businesses how to host a conversation on social media and offer tons of value and resources to their audience. She has a handful of courses available to help you develop your own marketing strategy on social media.  

• How Sarah’s business and journey with autism began at the same time.

"2018 was rough. I was literally living paycheck to paycheck because I would rather do that and be there for my son in every aspect that he needed instead of grinding with these people who didn’t care that my son needed me." 

• Website; http://motherofmarketing.co/

1. Find out how you can work with Mia at www.racreative.co

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