Laurent Collective Podcast

When you visit Britain there are some fun treats our family thinks your family will love. You may be able to find some of these in the international section of your grocery store in the states. Everything from biscuits to Cadbury fingers made the list that our kids think you should try. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOVL1DCJXUFYzbga8P0APrw

You don't need a house filled with expensive art supplies to encourage your kids to be creative. We keep a couple simple supplies in the house to help the kids come up with ideas to create and have fun. Our kids join us on this episode to share some of their favorite art supplies and how they use them. Link: See the supplies we mention in the episode: https://www.amazon.com/shop/laurentcollect...

We've lived in London for six years this month. While moving a family of five to a different country had lots of challenges, London ended up feeling like the right place for our family fairly quickly. Along with our oldest son, we discuss why London fits for our family and a few of the things we still find difficult. Overall, London now feels like home and we share why the city has become the...

Today, we have been married for 20 years! 20 years ago we couldn’t have imagined the type of life we live today and the ways we have grown together.  We share how we thought our lives would be 20 years ago and how we hope our lives look like in the next 20 years.

We took a month-long break from social media for our business. We were curious to see if it would change the amount of traffic to our Laurent Collective website and if it would change the amount of sales we had in the month. The social media break was also a time for us to assess how we felt about using the platforms personally. We wondered if we spent too much time on them instead of engaging in...

We have no control over the things our children become interested in. Their unique interests take hold in different ways and often it’s not always the same interests we hold as parents.  So how do we encourage them in their interests and how do we engage with them in those interests?  We chat about our kids and their vast interests. It’s been a challenge when we had other ideas for what they may b...

Running a business takes a lot of time and we’re always looking for ways to streamline tasks. Over the past 15 plus years of our business, we’ve tried out a ton of business tools to help cut down time on common tasks.  Whether it’s setting up a website, sending out newsletters to scheduling pins, we have found some tools that help us and save us time. We share these with you in the podcast and you...

We’re not ashamed to be in our 40s. We’ve learned so much in our lives so far that we have taken into each new stage and age.  In this podcast episode, we share about what we wish we would have taken into our lives in our 20s. In our 20s, we were really focused on our careers and climbing the corporate ladder because it meant more money to spend on more stuff.  Our perspective has changed as we’ve...

Summer break brings on the challenge of figuring out how to work while your kids are home. After being in business for over 15 years, all of those while having children, we've tried some things out for the summer breaks. In this episode, we share about how we make a summer schedule for our family and how we've made it work for our family. Summer Schedule PDF I'm Bored PDF

We had a dream of working on children's book illustrations and we started pursuing this idea. As we worked towards the dream, opportunities began to present themselves. But it didn't happen overnight. We share how we stepped into illustrating children's books and encourage you in what you may be dreaming. Links: Soul Fuel for Young Explorers by Bear Grylls https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul...

Parenting teenagers is difficult, but it’s also filled with so much joy. Trying to understand their emotions and reactions is hard, but if you can find ways to communicate openly, you can get through it.  The teen years open up so much opportunity to discuss and learn about new things together. It’s not all hard, there is so much fun with raising teens too. 

Social media is hard to keep up with and it often doesn’t help you see the results you want in your business. Is your social media bringing money to your business?  We’ve been considering quitting social media for our business and focusing on the areas that drive traffic and money to our business. We chat about the thoughts we’re in right now with the decision and how our time might be better used...

Staycations are a great way to stay on a budget and spend down time together as a family. They tend to get a bad rap since you’re “staying home” instead of heading someplace else for holiday, but we have found to love them. We share some of our tips on making a staycation relaxing and true time off from work and the daily grind.

Do you feel like you’re trying everything in your business and you’re all over the place with no focus? It’s easy to end a day or a week and realize you’ve just completed tasks, and you don’t feel fulfilled by any of it.  Finding a focus in your business is so important. It directs you and gives you a roadmap to figure out each next step. We chat about the idea of this focus and how it can help yo...

Slow evenings, reading a book, knitting, sitting with candles burning, relaxing…how does that sound to you? There’s something about the idea of slowness that draws us in, that leaves us craving it. Yet we often choose the opposite, giving into filling our schedules to the brim.  In this episode we talk about how we’ve been embracing the slowness and settling into it.  How are you embracing slow an...

It can be super challenging to figure out how to share all the tasks within a household. Everything from cleaning to managing kids’ activities takes someone coordinating and taking the responsibility.  This has been a real challenge in our marriage through the years. We recently found a resource to help us talk through the household tasks and find a positive way forward. We share this resource and...

Are you preparing to end a part of your business or shut down your business completely? We experienced this with shutting down our photography business.  Closing your business, or a portion of it, can be challenging as you have so many emotions involved in the process. We share some tips and learnings from the difficult time in closing our photography business.  We’d love to hear from you! Come sh...

Our son, Zane, composed a LOFI music album called Multiversal Calm. We interview him to ask about the creation of the album. Zane talks about the time he used to create the album and how the creativity came about for it.  We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollective.  LINKS: Multiversal Calm Album -...

We have been together for 24 years and married for almost 20 years. We have varying stories of how we met and how we began to date.  Each of us share our versions of how we met and laugh a lot at the differences in our stories.  How did you meet your partner? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (we read all the comments and messages) @laurentcollect...

Living in a small space has its challenges but we have found a small space also creates a lot of joy.  A small space has helped our family keep an eye on the amount of stuff that enters our home, makes it easier to keep clean and helps us have family time. Even though we live in a small space, it doesn’t prevent us from hosting in our home.  What do you love about the space you live in? We’d love...

Are you confused about your creative voice? It is confusing and we’re told all kinds of mixed messages on how we discover our voice in creativity.  In this episode, we talk about some questions to ask yourself when it comes to your creative voice.  What have you found helpful in discovering your creative voice? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us a DM (w...

What does the word brave mean to you? Do you picture knights and swords?  It’s not always about going into battle, rather it’s about being authentically you and trying new things, even if you fail. It’s about stepping out of comfort zones and discovering more about yourself.  What have you done that you consider brave? We’d love to hear from you! Come share with us on our latest IG post or send us...

Are you wondering if you have to be constantly overwhelmed in your business? Maybe you’re thinking that’s just part of having a small business. In this episode, we chat about how to realize you’re overwhelmed and then how to step out of it. We also share a free download you can get to give you steps to step out of the overwhelm of a small business.  What are you finding overwhelming in business ri...

We’ve lived in the United Kingdom for six years and have experienced and learned so much from the culture here. There are things we have ingrained into our lives now or are at least working on making them part of our lives.  We talk about how time is different here, the importance of holiday time, an appreciation for food and travel accessibility.  What have you learned from other cultures you’ve...

Does it feel like you are battling technology in your house and you’d just love to see your kids do something creative? We talk with our eleven-year-old son about what he likes about being creative. He shares the types of things we have in our house that he uses to be creative (clue: it’s nothing fancy). We also have a little chat about why we turn off the technology as parents to enable creativit...