Zelmira Crespi and Maria Luisa Montt, HAPPY MOM, HAPPY KID: How to Reconnect with the Best Version of You For Your Kids
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:05]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:07]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
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[0:28]And of course, my new publishing company called Sivi Books.
[0:32]And now back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[0:36]Hi! Hi! Hello!
[0:38]Enjoy the show!
[0:41]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:46]Here's a little snippet by one of the authors from the anthology.
[0:50]My name is Melissa Gould, and I am so excited to have my essay,
[0:55]What's in a Name, My Best Friends.
[0:58]In the new anthology, Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[1:02]And the thing I do not have time for is people who refuse to get the COVID vaccine.
[1:09]Get it, people.
[1:10]Zelmira Kressby and Maria Mundt are the co-authors of Happy Mom Happy Kid.
[1:15]How to reconnect with the best version of you for your kids.
[1:18]Maria Louisa Mundt is a digital entrepreneur and mom of four,
[1:22]who previously worked as a child psychologist in Chile.
[1:25]After moving to the US and being unable to continue in psychology,
[1:28]Maria built businesses through job-shipping Amazon and Shopify from home,
[1:32]while mothering her kids.
[1:34]She chose to find a way to feel happy about her life as an entrepreneur
[1:37]and her role as a mom at the same time, without the guilt or stress.
[1:41]While running various businesses, she proved that both options are doable,
[1:44]without negatively impacting her family life.
[1:46]Hoping to inspire more moms to live a more balanced life,
[1:49]Maria develops and teaches courses on building online businesses from home,
[1:53]for moms and others around the world.
[1:55]She currently lives in Florida with her husband and children.
[1:58]Zelmira Kressby is a writer and mother of five.
[2:02]Previously a journalist, a copywriter and a communications and marketing manager,
[2:06]she now balances motherhood with her roles as a freelance content producer and investigative
[2:10]journalist. After the birth of her first child, who was born with special needs
[2:15]and quickly becoming pregnant again within the same year,
[2:17]Selmira decided to pause her corporate career to focus on motherhood full-time,
[2:22]while navigating her own life as a mom, yet not losing hope to find a way to express herself
[2:26]professionally. She discovered that many other moms struggled to balance their roles
[2:30]and sought to open the conversation about the identity collision of motherhood and womanhood.
[2:35]A native of mom-to-video Uruguay,
[2:37]Selmira now lives in Florida with her family.
[2:40]Welcome, ladies. Thank you for coming on moms. Don't have time to read bugs to discuss
[2:44]happy mom, happy kid, how to reconnect with the best version of you for your kids.
[2:49]And I have Zelmira Kressby and Maria Louisa Mott.
[2:53]Do you pronounce this, right? Yeah. Hi, how are you? Yes, we're so excited to be here.
[2:58]Okay, so introduce yourselves. Tell us where you're from.
[3:02]All the good stuff about me. Okay, so we're both from Latin America.
[3:05]I'm from Uruguay and Maria from TJ. And we've been living here in Miami specifically,
[3:10]and he was game for almost over 10 years or 11. And we've been,
[3:16]our motherhood has taken place here in not in our home country with our family and our entire
[3:21]people grew around us. And so we've been having this ongoing conversation during the years about
[3:28]both being professionals and wanting to do more of our lives. But we have at the kids,
[3:33]we don't have families close by how to make more out of the life that we have.
[3:38]And we just kept on talking about the same subject of what really happens when you become a mom.
[3:43]Like something really does shift, something really does move you around. And it's not so easy.
[3:47]It's not so simple. It's not so effective. Like when we used to be professionals or work at an
[3:53]office or she would have her, I call it child psychologist consultations, it was things we're
[3:58]more organized before. And now they're not so organized. But can we get back on track and what
[4:04]happens then? So that's when we decided to write a book about it because we really wanted to
[4:10]first answer our own questions. And second, help any other mom that was kind of feeling the same
[4:16]thing. I love that. Yes, I'm asked, Anita said, I'm from Chile, a mom of four,
[4:22]so Anita has five kids. So that's pretty amazing on itself. We are experts by experience.
[4:31]And as I tell you, psychologists was very frustrating because coming to this country,
[4:36]I couldn't work as a child psychologist because I had to validate all my studies and whatever.
[4:42]And then I had four kids. So with this book, I could really get into the things that I saw
[4:50]all this time happening with me, with Selene, with all my friends and a woman that we talk about.
[4:56]And it's been a challenge when it's been a real good adventure and something really cool that we did.
[5:03]Yes. Wow. How old are all your kids? Mine are half as a finesse. She's eight. And then I have four
[5:10]boys. We're seven, four, three, and five months. Oh my gosh. Wow. I'm doing that.
[5:17]Amazing. Yes, you are. And I have the oldest one is 12. I'm the leader's one is six.
[5:24]So yeah, she's a little bit better than I am. I'm still a little bit.
[5:30]Just a little ahead. Just a little bit of tunnel now. So yeah, I can see things clear.
[5:36]Yeah, I have four kids from 14 to six. So I'm even further alone. And it does get past, you know,
[5:46]but you know, part of why I picked this book and you know, I get a lot of parenting
[5:51]book pitches all the time. But it was so open, honest, and just real. And you could tell that
[5:58]you are doing this from the goodness of your hearts to like help other people. I even loved how
[6:02]you examine this concept of like mattresses or mom essence or whatever. You know, and how, you know,
[6:09]this is a life stage. And people spend so much time talking about, yeah, now I'm a mom, right? But it
[6:15]is a whole nother physiological. Everything about you changes like from your heart, literally like
[6:23]your mind. Everything is literally physiologically changing. And of course, emotionally. And how you
[6:28]addressed it and shared interwoven or interwoven is that it weren't your own experiences throughout.
[6:34]So tell me a little bit about the sort of more sciencey stuff that you're like the life stage
[6:41]part of it that, you know, that your body goes through as a mom. And then I want to hear more about
[6:46]your own experience. Well, for me, my biggest aha moment when I was writing this book was that when
[6:51]we actually started the book and we didn't have the answers, it's more like an investigative journalism
[6:56]journey that we did a study. We did, we, we studied over 600 women. Maria can tell you a little bit
[7:02]more about that. But I kept on researching and researching and trying to find something that would
[7:07]explain what really happens to us moms. And when the word mattresses or mattresses came up, we still
[7:12]don't know how to pronounce it, but we love it. The comparison of comparing a teenager without a
[7:17]lessons and a mother with mattresses, it makes so much sense because a teenager does have a direct
[7:22]impact to their brain, their body and their hormones. And women have the same exact impact when
[7:27]they get pregnant and when they, when they're in postpartum. And it makes so much sense. And
[7:32]you have teenagers running around the world and everybody's like, oh, well, they're a teenager
[7:36]and they're going through some stuff. And I, I don't really feel felt like somebody was like,
[7:40]oh, you're going through some stuff. You just became a mom or you were just pregnant. Maybe you
[7:45]couldn't like have a little bit of sleep deprivation, but not so much is allowed. Like you have to
[7:50]bounce back, bounce back to with your body, bounce back to your job, bounce back to your husband,
[7:54]bounce back to everybody. Like nothing really happened. And that's, that's something that really,
[7:59]like that was the moment that I was like, oh, my God, thank you for this answer. So I'm not crazy.
[8:04]I'm not like so alone in this. And the best thing about mattresses is that all moms go through it,
[8:10]every single person that becomes a mom, 100%. You can do it. You can, you can navigate it in
[8:15]different levels. Obviously, not everybody's hormones are the same, but we, nobody, nobody can escape
[8:24]it. And I love that. So to compliment, sell me, I had a background in psychology. I'm a cleaning
[8:30]cause they call it this. So I needed to see numbers. I needed to, to, to do a real thing. And to see
[8:36]what happens to moms, where do we get our fulfillment? What happens to us that we are not fulfilled?
[8:43]We talk every day with different kind of moms here and there. And rarely we see, oh, yeah, I'm good
[8:50]in every level. I'm super, okay, I'm super happy. I don't see that. Sell me, didn't. So we study
[8:56]600 women from United States, South America, like super Europe, everywhere. And we find little areas
[9:06]that you can work daily, weekly, that will improve your life satisfaction. And that was huge,
[9:13]because when we think about happiness, you many times think about things have to improve or,
[9:20]or big things have to improve. And on our study, we saw that little things that you can change
[9:28]or do a week on your health, on your spiritual, on your community. But with your family,
[9:35]you can improve greatly your fulfillment and your happiness within you. So that was a great part
[9:42]of this book. So what are some of the things that you guys do to make yourself happier,
[9:48]like the little... Well, as in everything is a balance, right, tell me. So it's unreal,
[9:53]but we try to balance. But have a mental check from different areas that you have to work.
[10:00]family, social, spiritually, or anything that can elevate you, work, of course, and physical
[10:09]health.
[10:10]So if in a week, I see that I'm not moving my body at all, and I don't mean going to
[10:15]the gym, maybe take your last throw to the supermarket as a physical internment or pay
[10:23]attention to your kids, like if you want family time, you already have it, just be mindful
[10:29]on the time that you have it with your kids doing homework or whatever.
[10:34]It's like more than doing more things is being more conscious, more mindful of what
[10:42]you're already doing, right?
[10:44]Yes.
[10:45]And what we did is here, I'm showing you the self-clear care planner.
[10:50]What came out of the studies really was that if you just put a check on each area, just
[10:54]once a week, it doesn't have to be a huge thing, it doesn't mean that you did three
[10:58]hours of work out.
[10:59]Maybe you did 10 minutes of walking over to your kid's school instead of driving in
[11:04]the car, for example.
[11:05]If you can check the check, you can do that column, then you will be starting, you're
[11:10]going to start feeling more satisfied with yourself, just seeing that check.
[11:13]Once a week, I mean, that's not that complicated.
[11:16]So Amanda, if you do it twice a week, then you're going to actually start doing something
[11:20]more for your body.
[11:22]The good thing is that what we really came up was this is not so complicated.
[11:27]We did not want to do a how-to book, we did not want to stress out the mom that was going
[11:31]to pick up this book.
[11:32]I'm going to be the very, very obvious fan of you on that time to quarantine a follow-up
[11:42]device to be open this week, where I'm absolutely loving.
[11:45]And in an essay, by you, actually, the weight of it all in quarantine on my body and
[11:50]securities came roaring back.
[11:53]You actually write the perfect description of our, of the people that are going to read
[11:57]this book and enjoy it and use it.
[11:59]It's when you, when you found out that you could do something about your weight, you were
[12:03]like, okay, something that worked.
[12:04]I could control the chaos of having twins.
[12:06]I couldn't absorb the shock of going from being an overachiever, just bending my
[12:11]days on the playroom floor, longing for the time where I could just sleep again.
[12:15]You found something for you, something that to aspire to, when grades and salary and
[12:20]all other external measures of success suddenly evaporated.
[12:24]I was like, hallelujah, that is the exact moment that we all go through that there's just
[12:31]like, what happened?
[12:32]Like, who took my life away?
[12:34]Who took my identity away?
[12:37]And so many people, so many women go through that.
[12:40]And we, we really wanted to take care of that without the huge stress factor.
[12:45]So that's where we're so happy that our study came up with it.
[12:48]And just once a week, you take care, you sit down with your four year old, 10 minutes
[12:53]and really just play with him.
[12:56]If you did that once a week, you're going to feel much better about yourself.
[12:59]And it's just going to put you in the best headspace to then go on and make larger goals
[13:05]and really go after what you really want.
[13:08]And if you really want to take care of your weight, you'll have the video and podcast
[13:11]of how to lose the month.
[13:12]So when I tell you those weight, the answers are there.
[13:16]A lot of people have really worked on every single answer, on answering all the questions
[13:21]that you have inside.
[13:23]What this book does, that we wanted to give you that final nudge, that final push.
[13:28]And above all, the permission to understand that you're not alone, you're not a normal,
[13:33]you're not a bad mom.
[13:35]You don't feel great.
[13:36]You don't think that this is absolutely beautiful in Disney World.
[13:38]It's okay.
[13:39]We all went through it.
[13:40]You're going to have good days.
[13:41]You're going to have bad days.
[13:43]Don't worry.
[13:44]Pick up this book.
[13:45]It's an easy read.
[13:46]It's really fast.
[13:48]It kind of has essays like yours.
[13:49]I mean, you could do it in a short way.
[13:52]It kind of, we tried to put in our own personal lives essays in there so that to give
[13:58]a more movement and to show you that you're actually not, you're not alone.
[14:02]We have your back.
[14:03]We put phrases from very unknown people and phrases from very known people like Adele
[14:09]and Amy Schumer.
[14:10]Everybody goes through this.
[14:12]Just pick up the book and we want you to just feel the momentum and just with a couple
[14:17]of weeks of going through our planner, you're going to start to be able to just refocus
[14:21]and kind of find yourself.
[14:23]I love it.
[14:24]I totally love it.
[14:25]And thank you for quoting me back to me because I think that's the first.
[14:28]And I love, by the way, these italicized passages of your own personal experience.
[14:34]Sometimes I found myself so it was like lingering more in those because I'm like, wait,
[14:38]I want to know more about these.
[14:40]girls, especially because you have probably, if I had an award, which maybe I'll add
[14:45]to the zippy words, for best chapter heading, you know, years are so clever and funny.
[14:50]And I was just like, oh, I totally get these girls.
[14:53]And I just, I want to read one passage that you wrote, but just to agree with everything
[14:58]you're saying.
[14:59]I mean, when I was a mom at home, I mean, I am a mom at home and some of my kids keep
[15:04]running in.
[15:05]But in the trenches, like in the really early days when I was like, not wanting to admit
[15:09]that maybe I wasn't the happiest I'd ever been and like, you know, I felt like an injured
[15:14]athlete a little bit.
[15:15]Right.
[15:16]Like I had been training and training and then all of a sudden everything stopped and
[15:18]I was like, okay, even though I read something new came in, that was amazing.
[15:22]But what I tried to do was I felt so stressed that I kept taking things off my plate.
[15:28]And I think that was a huge mistake.
[15:30]Like I kept being like, I'm overwhelmed.
[15:32]I have this, this and this.
[15:33]I'm going to have to just stop doing that and that'll make it better.
[15:36]But it turned out that was the wrong thing for me.
[15:39]Great.
[15:40]Taking things off made things worse.
[15:42]Anyway, I just wanted to like, you have to put the right things on your plate.
[15:47]You can't just keep taking things off because then what is left to enjoy.
[15:51]Right.
[15:52]So anyway, deep thoughts for me in the morning.
[15:56]Okay.
[15:57]I just wanted to read this part.
[15:58]It's in the little things by Z.
[16:00]I was 23 years old when I lost my mom to cancer and I'm so sorry.
[16:04]She was my everything, my home, my true companion.
[16:07]We had moved around so much because of my dad's job, losing mom was almost like losing
[16:12]home.
[16:13]I thought it was just me until I started to talk to other people in morning.
[16:16]I realized that often when you lose someone close, the thing you missed most are the small,
[16:21]daily details or the usual.
[16:23]I realized that in a rush to keep my kids entertained and stimulated all the time, I was
[16:27]doing a lot of extra unnecessary things.
[16:30]And then you have a bunch of examples.
[16:32]But I saw that what I missed most about my own mom was simply being with her, seeing
[16:36]her laugh and feeling her hands.
[16:39]Oh, yeah.
[16:40]So.
[16:41]Right.
[16:42]Cause it's, it's the moments.
[16:45]It's those, it's not the classes.
[16:47]It's not the structured, whatever.
[16:50]It's the time.
[16:51]It's that connection time.
[16:52]Yeah.
[16:53]Right.
[16:54]Anyway, tell me more about this whole thing.
[16:55]Yes.
[16:56]Actually, when my mom, my mom died to cancer, she was my entire, my four years of college.
[17:02]We've had her in and out of chemotherapy and everything.
[17:05]And by the last year that she was already, it was the, the breast cancer went into
[17:10]bone can't turn into bone cancer, bone cancer broke her hip, hip cancel, the chemotherapy
[17:16]that she was getting at that moment.
[17:18]And then she really couldn't recoup rate and that's when everything started going downhill.
[17:23]And that's when I realized basically I was like taking care of her, I was her, her home
[17:28]nurse with my dad and I, I'm the youngest of four, but all my other siblings were, we're
[17:31]studying abroad or they were working abroad.
[17:34]And I noticed that when she finally was much more like in bed and just not really there
[17:39]and it's starting to go into coma and in and out and stuff like that, I kept on looking
[17:43]at her hands and I kept on touching her hands and I was like, her hands.
[17:46]Like I mean, I, I can't live without her hands and just and, and she always, she, she
[17:50]used to play the piano and she just had these beautiful long fingers and, and I just
[17:56]spent days and days just holding her hand, putting her hand up or gets my, my face to
[18:01]just like, oh my God, like, like, let me keep this moment of her hands and that's when
[18:05]I realized with my kids, I, I remembered one day I was running from the, the, the frost
[18:10]science museum into the Children's Museum to the, to the park to the, whatever.
[18:15]And then just one day, everything started to get a little bit more chaotic.
[18:18]I had four and my husband was doing a master's at Kellogg and, and I was like, where's
[18:23]the answer?
[18:24]And I remembered my mom's hands and then you know what?
[18:26]And I just plopped myself on the floor of their playroom.
[18:30]I put them baby number four on my breast and, and then I just let them just be around
[18:35]me.
[18:36]And just, they just wanted to be around me and smell me and be able to touch me.
[18:39]And I was like, this is it.
[18:40]This is, this is what they need us for.
[18:43]And, and I want to concentrate when I'm with them like this, I don't, I can't be like
[18:49]this all day.
[18:50]It's going to drive me crazy, obviously, that's unreal.
[18:52]But let's do more of this when we're together and just be cell phone aside.
[18:57]Just let them be around me, smell me, like touch me, like talk to me, play with, play
[19:01]around me because they're all very, very little.
[19:03]And I think that's going to, that's going to really stay with them and that, and I would
[19:06]just see them just turn into this like sort of peaceful little, little group of people just
[19:12]knowing that mom was there.
[19:14]That's all we, that's all they need.
[19:16]And that's why the book is called Happy Mom Happy Kid.
[19:19]Once you really understand what you need and what your kids need, you're in a whole different
[19:24]ballgame.
[19:25]If you're running behind the bus all the time and just trying to find like this, this balance
[19:31]and this beautiful ideal and the expectations that you're trying to satisfy, you're going
[19:37]to go crazy.
[19:38]Just really pay attention to what you need and what your kids need, what you need, what
[19:42]as a child connect with that, get to know yourself and just put those two puzzles together
[19:48]and I swear to God, your kids are going to, they're not going to need much more.
[19:52]They're going to be everything you need them to be and want them to be.
[19:55]That's that beautiful.
[19:57]That whole thing started to finish.
[19:59]I feel like you need.
[20:00]Write a memoir, still here.
[20:01]Well, this is my first, and this is something
[20:03]that I do want to tell other writers.
[20:05]I've been wanting to write a book since I started college.
[20:08]And when obviously I started to write a memoir
[20:10]about my mom's death, and they got too complicated,
[20:13]it got too hard, it got, I was trying to move forward,
[20:15]and it was keeping me back.
[20:18]But this is a goal that I've had for a long time,
[20:21]and I wasn't really able to get the moment
[20:24]and sit down and do it.
[20:26]So what I did, because I'm a mom,
[20:28]and I wanted to have a lot of kids,
[20:29]but I wanted to read a book,
[20:31]and I wanted to feel satisfied with,
[20:33]I teamed up with a mom friend, hello.
[20:36]And the good thing about my mom friend
[20:38]is she's not a writer, but she's an entrepreneur.
[20:40]So she would be literally kicking my writers
[20:43]by saying, when are we gonna have this chapter?
[20:45]When are we gonna have this?
[20:46]When are we gonna have that?
[20:48]And that accountability partner was so important
[20:51]to actually get this book out.
[20:52]We actually decided to write it in February of 2010,
[20:57]and at the time that the pandemic came,
[20:59]and it's 20, 20, sorry, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, sorry.
[21:03]We started writing this book in 2020,
[21:05]and in February, we met once.
[21:09]We sat down and we're like,
[21:10]we wanna write a book about this, about that.
[21:13]A week later, everything was shut down,
[21:15]everybody was inside their apartments.
[21:16]We live in Cuba, Spain, everybody usually has apartments,
[21:19]because you're all day outside, you don't really need a house.
[21:21]Everybody was stuck, like, sorry to youth,
[21:23]with our thousands of kids inside.
[21:26]And that's when I told Maria,
[21:27]we're doing this book, no matter what.
[21:29]We're moms from eight to eight,
[21:31]but we're doing this book,
[21:32]because we will, I will go crazy
[21:34]if I don't write this book.
[21:35]I need my time during this time.
[21:38]So this book was written in the wee hours of the morning,
[21:41]and this, or in the wee hours of the night,
[21:44]but we got this through, and it's been amazing
[21:47]to give birth to my fifth kid,
[21:49]and a month later, give birth to my first book,
[21:52]and how that, how that,
[21:54]this, I would have never thought that this was possible
[21:57]to actually be having such a big project,
[22:00]while having a baby, while having other four kids.
[22:03]And I was telling Maria,
[22:04]this is like, it feels so amazing to be able to like,
[22:07]get out of the baby, be with him,
[22:10]connect with him, the whole family part is beautiful,
[22:12]and then have something so mine, so precious,
[22:15]so shiny to look forward to.
[22:18]That was amazing, that was the best thing.
[22:20]That's awesome.
[22:21]This could not be more inspiring, by the way.
[22:24]Like, you're making me want to like, I don't know.
[22:26]Like, it's all possible, you know?
[22:29]Like, as long as you keep your thing,
[22:32]you're a much better mom.
[22:34]I think that's essentially what you're saying, right?
[22:36]All of this, like, I'm just gonna,
[22:38]if the more you focus on just being the mom,
[22:42]you're doing your kids a disservice.
[22:43]Not to say you're not supposed to stay home,
[22:45]that's totally great and fine.
[22:46]That's not what I mean at all.
[22:47]I mean, somehow, keeping part of you alive,
[22:52]while you're doing it, is like, the most,
[22:55]it's the best gift you can give your kids, I think.
[22:57]And I think that's what you're saying.
[22:59]Yes, no, I work from home.
[23:01]So does Maria.
[23:02]I mean, sometimes, like, go to the Starbucks or maybe
[23:05]we have a small office for one of the thousand businesses,
[23:09]but I mean, I'm around.
[23:11]If anybody has an accident,
[23:12]if everybody needs to go to the, to the pediatrician,
[23:14]I'm there, but when I have moments,
[23:18]I carve them out and I respect them.
[23:20]And I take care of me, because I realized
[23:22]that it has a direct impact on the way
[23:24]that I treat my kids, the way I treat my husband,
[23:26]the way that I treat myself.
[23:28]Like, how I see myself in the mirror every morning.
[23:31]And Maria has the same situation.
[23:33]Yeah, same, same, same.
[23:35]I wish I had met you guys, like, 14 years ago.
[23:38]Yes, me too.
[23:41]I wish I would have wrote this book about 10 years ago.
[23:44]Yeah, no.
[23:45]I mean, this is like what I would have loved to read
[23:49]and even the fact that it's not so long.
[23:51]I mean, it's like, you know, it's great.
[23:53]I feel like the two of you are a powerhouse team,
[23:56]and this is just the first of many projects
[23:59]to do this part of the two of you.
[24:01]We want to, I'm talking about inspiration.
[24:03]You're a huge inspiration.
[24:05]I mean, when we saw that you gave us the blurb,
[24:07]we just started to really, like, I started to look at
[24:11]everything that you've done, and you're just dangerous,
[24:13]because I mean, it's listening to you.
[24:15]And I have so many books now that I have to read
[24:17]at my house.
[24:18]I mean, I don't have time.
[24:20]I was like, I can't listen to one more podcast
[24:24]until I finish the other book, which is horrible.
[24:27]But yeah, you reminded me of the beauty of essays.
[24:30]I've been a essay fan for my entire life.
[24:32]And now, and I bought the Decent Pola book.
[24:38]It's a book that's just absolutely huge, Philip Lopate.
[24:42]Oh, yeah, yeah.
[24:43]Oh, my God.
[24:44]That just came in yesterday, and it's huge.
[24:47]And I just opened it up this morning, and I read, like,
[24:49]one essay, and I was like, she's that.
[24:52]I was like, that was the life lesson right there.
[24:54]I was just like, wasn't prepared to read it.
[24:56]No, amazing.
[24:57]I mean, everything that you're doing to help authors,
[25:00]and people just move their things forward.
[25:03]I mean, if you have any tips for us, please do.
[25:05]We're a lot, we have a lot of kids,
[25:08]and we're trying our best with this book, but this is amazing.
[25:11]What you're doing, thank you.
[25:12]Of course, and thank you for saying that.
[25:14]But yeah, I feel like we need to regroup offline
[25:16]after the podcast or something,
[25:18]because you both are obviously super smart
[25:21]and have all these ideas.
[25:22]And I feel like what you have to say,
[25:25]I mean, yes, there's this book already, which is amazing.
[25:27]But I do feel like there's so much more you guys can do,
[25:30]and you're already doing it.
[25:32]And it's exciting.
[25:33]The potential is exciting, and the combination of you guys
[25:36]is really great, too.
[25:37]So yeah, it's really awesome.
[25:40]Well, yeah, well, first of all, what you need to do is, right?
[25:43]You have to write an essay for mom's, and I'm time to write.
[25:46]That's right.
[25:47]And then I'll like, right?
[25:48]OK, so just do something really short,
[25:50]even just tell us more about the rubric, right?
[25:52]Like, how do I check off one thing a week?
[25:56]Does it really count that I'm walking to my garage?
[25:58]Yeah, yeah, that's.
[26:02]Does it count that I watched to my game,
[26:04]if they're a word, I don't know.
[26:05]Anyway, and yeah, so start writing essay,
[26:08]and I feel like, yeah, we just have to keep in touch.
[26:10]And imagine all that you can do.
[26:13]Like, your kids are so young, and you're already doing all this.
[26:17]Like, I'm putting like a check back in five years
[26:21]to see what these ladies are doing,
[26:22]because you'll start, you could start something amazing,
[26:25]or I don't know.
[26:26]Anyway, let's stay in touch.
[26:28]I feel like, you know, it's amazing.
[26:30]Awesome.
[26:31]Do you want to do any other questions about the work?
[26:33]My last question is, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[26:36]Well, that's what I told you to get a buddy.
[26:38]If you're a mom, and you're an aspiring writer,
[26:43]just get a buddy, get a friend that is really interested
[26:46]in what you want to write, just stare out there.
[26:49]Go to the park, and I swear you're going to find somebody
[26:52]to just an accountability partner.
[26:53]Just like, I'm going to try to write this by sometimes.
[26:56]I didn't really feel like writing,
[26:58]but I knew that she was waiting for me
[27:00]with John the computer, and we would have Zoom calls
[27:03]and the night about the book,
[27:06]and it's just having somebody there to respond to you
[27:09]and make you feel important,
[27:10]and make you feel that what you have to write,
[27:13]and you have to do somebody needs it.
[27:16]Or even less than that, I do not have a buddy.
[27:19]Just tell someone, you're going to write a book.
[27:22]With that said, people are going to ask you back,
[27:25]oh, when are you finishing it?
[27:27]I do want to write a book,
[27:29]and that's such that I don't want to have pressure,
[27:33]but accountability to finish what you started.
[27:37]Yes.
[27:38]I started telling people I was writing a book after business school,
[27:41]and it's finally coming out next year.
[27:44]So I have been working on this stupid memoir for like,
[27:48]it's going to be almost 20 years,
[27:49]and I can finally be like, okay.
[27:51]Finally, that's not that this category.
[27:54]Anyway, this is a great start.
[27:56]I mean, then this is a great example,
[27:59]also of just starting out,
[28:02]and maybe you don't have time to actually finish the book,
[28:04]but just if you have something to put together
[28:07]and work on, let's use it.
[28:10]I mean, I think that we writing
[28:14]has really does help a lot of people,
[28:17]and it's just snippets of information at a time,
[28:21]like essays or like our book,
[28:23]just trying to keep it concise and fast,
[28:26]and you can really change the life.
[28:28]Love it. Amazing.
[28:30]Well, thank you, ladies.
[28:31]Sorry that the kids are running in,
[28:33]and can we ask you for a selfie with you?
[28:36]Yes, sure.
[28:38]Oh, I should have dried my hair today.
[28:39]I don't know.
[28:40]Oh, this is just like this.
[28:42]There we go.
[28:43]Awesome.
[28:44]This is so great.
[28:45]I'm excited.
[28:46]Where is your answer?
[28:47]Okay, this is great meeting you.
[28:49]Thank you.
[28:50]You too.
[28:51]So lucky.
[28:52]Bye.
[28:52]Bye.
[28:54]Thanks for listening to this episode
[28:56]of moms don't have time to read books.
[28:58]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram
[29:00]at zB-O-N's and at moms don't have time to read books.
[29:03]Also sign up for my newsletter at zB-O-N's.com
[29:06]and sign up for my virtual book club
[29:07]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:10]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[29:11]in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[29:14]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[29:15]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.