Truthbombs on Parenting, Entrepreneurship and Pleasure
“They’re not yours. They are their own soul, and you get the honor of caring for them. They’re their own person, and it is not their job to please you in any way, shape or form.”
Danielle LaPorte’s intuitive nature informs her parenting style, and she shares her spirituality with her son. In this interview, I ask her to talk about her parenting journey. She shares that it began with an overwhelming desire to be a mom, that, when it arrived, she immediately followed even though it didn’t fit into her predetermined life plan.
Danielle’s next-level understanding of consciousness is the foundation of her parenting philosophy, a philosophy that includes truthbombs like: no shaming, no lying, no psychological game playing and no pushing your child to be what YOU want. Rather, Danielle encourages parents to pay attention to what their children love, who they are from the beginning, even as infants.
Today Danielle shares her parenting and entrepreneurial journeys, explaining how the two paths coincide and developed together. She offers her insight on parenting, speaking to the phases, the physical exhaustion and the decisions of what to share (and not share) with your kids.
I ask Danielle about the solitude of entrepreneurship and solo parenting, the significance of cultivating adult female friendships, and the value of meditation and pleasure in living a full life. Listen in and learn how to develop a parenting style that is informed by your belief system and honors you child’s soul.
The Startup Pregnant Podcast Episode #034
Some quotes from the episode
- “Everybody tells you to sleep when the baby sleeps. That doesn’t happen. You don’t sleep when the baby sleeps if you’re an entrepreneur. You put the baby down … and you try and write a blog post.”
- “Sometimes I would go and have lunch with [my son]. We could do that, just hang out and have a picnic in the schoolyard. So beautiful. All that flexibility and that proximity is just—it’s golden.”
- “Who my son was on Day One is who he is 14 years later. I thought, ‘Oh, his personality will develop.’ He is that. He’s steady. I wish I would have paid more attention when he was an infant to his personality without thinking, ‘Oh, that’ll change, that will evolve.’ No, he has the same characteristics.”
- “I also have concerns about … how [social media] affects a child’s psyche. I’ve seen kids go in the direction of… It seems that everything they’re doing—they know they’re being watched, and there’s this performance element to them that I don’t think is natural or healthy.”
- “I consider it my job, my honor, my pleasure to completely indoctrinate my kid into the way that I look at the world.”
- “Your child will not always eat pasta and butter and that’s it. That will pass.”
- “They’re not yours. They are their own soul, and you get the honor of caring for them. They’re their own person, and it is not their job to please you in any way, shape or form.”
- “[My team] is very much collaborative, but at the beginning of the day and the end of the day, I’ve got to know what I want, and I’ve got to be clear that I believe that’s the right thing, and that can be really isolating.”
- “If you want to be sane, you need to pay attention to your mind, give your mind some intentional healing and some space and some nourishment. And you do that through some form of contemplation.”
- “Wouldn’t that be amazing if the stuff and the money and everybody else’s approval didn’t matter as much? Well, the cure for that is to make your pleasure a priority.”
LEARN MORE ABOUT DANIELLE LAPORTE
Danielle LaPorte is an inspirational speaker, bestselling author and rockstar entrepreneur. One of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, Danielle’s work focuses on conscious goal-setting and spiritual devotion. Her website is on the list of Forbes Top 100 Websites for Women, and Entrepreneur Magazine calls her ‘equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass.’
- Danielle’s Website
- Danielle on Instagram
- Danielle on Facebook
- Danielle on Twitter
- Danielle on Pinterest
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
- Danielle’s 5 Collections
- White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping It Real on Your Spiritual Path—from One Seeker to Another by Danielle LaPorte
- The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul by Danielle LaPorte
- The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful and Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms by Danielle LaPorte
- The Creation Space Meditation Kit
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so loved this conversation. xoxo
Loved this episode Sarah!! Great questions and I so enjoyed hearing Danielle’s spiritual/seeker approach to birth and parenting and entrepreneurship. Do you mind sharing the books D sent you while pregnant? Thank you!
Of course! She sent us several — Ina May’s guide to childbirth (a book that really opened my eyes about what the birth process IS), Raising Cain (about boy’s emotional development), Conscious Parenting (by Shefali Tsabury) about being awake as a parent. She also sent Leo some books, like Children Of The World.
The part about observing your child and telling them what’s happening is an idea that I realized after the podcast came from a bunch of books. A lot of Montessori philosophy addresses this, and I really enjoyed Montessori: A Modern Approach. I don’t think she sent that one to us, but I’m including it here because it was a beautiful book that changed how I think about parenting. The line that stands out to me was “adults need children as much as children need adults,” about how it’s actually part of a thriving society when children and adults are intermixed with each other, and we have as much to learn from how they’re growing into the world, and our relationship with them, as they have to learn from us. It sparked an “aha” moment in me that changed how I see parenting (and the pathology of separating children from our social groups in a somewhat extreme American way).
Can I just say how amazing this was to listen to? It was insightful to hear Danielle’s own parenting journey. The point she raised about being advised to quit her job “and live on credit cards if necessary” rings so true for me right now and was comforting to hear her speak about. Thank you both!