Start Rising Podcast
The Start Rising Podcast, hosted by Caiti Courtier, is a show for entrepreneurs seeking personal growth and heightened positivity who are taking imperfect action. The podcast focuses on the topics of resilience and overcoming obstacles to achieve success, with an emphasis on questioning old beliefs and learning valuable lessons along the way. The podcast is aimed at entrepreneurs who may feel isolated on their journey and are looking for support during the beginning through growth stages of their business. By listening to the Start Rising Podcast, individuals can connect with like-minded individuals and gain inspiration to pursue their big audacious goals.
Start Rising Podcast
Episode 50: Preserving Precious Moments: The Story Behind 'Letters to Ollie'
Ever wished you could freeze time to cherish those precious fleeting moments of your child's early days? That's the exact conundrum that led me, a new parent, to create Letters to Ollie, a customizable journal notebook designed to help caregivers capture and immortalize those heartwarming memories. Inspired by the birth of my son, Oliver, this memory milestone book is more than a journal; it's a treasure trove of prompts and pages for recording every special moment that would otherwise be lost in the haze of new parenthood.
Struggling to choose between a hardcover copy or a digital file? You're not alone. I grappled with the same question before realizing the tangible, emotional value that a hardcover version offers. There's something undeniably special about flipping through the pages of a book filled with the moments that made you smile, laugh, and maybe even shed a tear or two. But don't worry, I haven't dismissed the idea of an electronic version. Join me as I share my journey of creating this keepsake, explore the emotional weight of a hardcover book, and discuss the potential for a digital version of Letters to Ollie. This isn't just about creating a journal; it's about preserving the precious essence of a child's early years in a timeless gift.
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Hi and welcome into another episode of the Start Rising podcast. Today I share with you my latest project inspired by the birth of my son, oliver, and how I did it. Let's jump in. So I want to talk to you about my latest journal creation, journal notebook creation. Essentially, it is a book that I've created called Letters to Ollie, and that's the name of it, but truly it's personalizable to whatever child this is being given to or written about. Essentially, it's got a blank space on the front page for a parent or a caregiver to write in the child's name.
Speaker 1:It first came about as I was in hospital but just had a C-section and was feeling very groggy and a few other things that were happening that just made me feel like I had medical whiplash. I wanted to wrap my head around being a new parent and a few other things that were going on and I thought, well, I want to make sure I remember this experience, even though it is not the most ideal, with how some things were going and at the end of the day everything was fine, healthy mum, healthy baby. But I pulled up the notes up in my phone because the days we spent about a week in the hospital and the days kind of started to blur together. So I wanted to make sure I would remember things from the first days of his life, because people do talk about how things, how the time goes by so fast, how things are a bit of a blur and you don't really remember. And I pulled out my notes up on my phone and just started writing Oliver's first days. So I would write day one, this and the date, like how many days old he was and what the date was and what significant thing happened to remember so I will be able to recount these events to him, for myself, for processing the events and also for him, suitable for it to be shared with him as well. And I shared the notes up with my husband, trevor, who you've met on the previous episodes of the podcast, and we just both went in and we added things and we've been adding to it and adding to it and it's just kind of grown.
Speaker 1:And while I was on maternity leave because my brain doesn't really slow down by any means I thought you know what? I need something a little bit more sustainable than putting notes into my phone, because there's only so much you can put on your phone. And what's that going to be like as far as a memento for him when he's older. So I thought, well, I have this skill, I have the ability to basically create a book through Canva and then publishing through KDP, and it's something that I've been doing a lot. And I also, around Mother's Day, made Mother's Journals as well to be able to have them up there as Mother's Day Gifts. So I thought, well, let's use that same idea because, well, gosh, at the end of 2021,. I also created like a pretty in-depth goal planner that, realistically, was a bit more intense than it needed to be for it to be functional. So I thought, well, I've done the blank journals with, like the lines and I've done this more in-depth one. Let's do something in the middle and let's also use some AI tools to test that out as well. So I had the idea of let's call it Letters to Ollie, because that's essentially what I was doing writing those things, and let's make it a guide, a step-by-step, prompt journal for parents.
Speaker 1:Once we finally got home, we were discharged from the hospital and it was already a month not a month, sorry a week into his life and I pulled out my milestone books for parenting and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, I need to write down all of these things for him. Has he met this milestone? What was the date that it happened? Let's write down about all of these things, like those milestone books, and then let's schedule the newborn photos and all of these things. It began to feel really, really overwhelming and all I could do was focus on that simple task. That was this day. This is what happened. You did this. You smiled at this person. It made me really happy.
Speaker 1:When this happened, I could only focus on the smaller tasks, because those larger milestone books made me feel really overwhelmed and it also made me feel like a lot of stuff was missed out on because there were gaps in that. Like, yeah, he's social, smiled at this point, but it missed all of these other interactions that were so beautiful and so fleeting and along those lines of people saying goes really fast, it really does. But I feel like this product of letters to Ollie or letters to whatever the child's name is, when it's for them, helps, walks the parents through. This is what this book is. It's a memory milestone book, but it's a simple one. It's one that's not overwhelming by any means, and because I thought well, sometimes people may be just in such a haze of the newborn phase, the infant phase.
Speaker 1:I created a bunch of prompts in there too. So on those days you're just, you can't think about it, you just want to be able to write something down for your child. Having 70 plus prompts in that book at the beginning helps jog that memory. And we also have pages that are headlined dear and the date. So you write down these things and I personally favor the hardcover copy because I feel like that just I don't know has a I don't know feels like it has a really good, like vibe. It's kind of hefty. It's a lot better than the. In my mind I would prefer the hardcover one over the paperback one. There's both options available, but I don't know, just has that more legitimacy to it and what I imagine doing now. This is many, many years down the track and I hope it comes very slowly being able to gift these books, probably because I'll write more than one as far as the notes and the letters in them.
Speaker 1:Being able to gift that to him when he graduates high school as his momento, as he is able to see these little milestones that you achieved and it also. It also kind of came off the back of. We kind of unlearn things, we get taught things as adults that we kind of forget what we like to do and how we, how we act as a kid, and there's so many things that talks about. Well, when you get to that point of like, well, what did you want to do or what did you enjoy as a child, a lot of us really don't know, and I thought this was a beautiful, this would be a beautiful way to capture those things. However small in the moment, they'll be big when we look back on them for him, and we can also read to him these stories. So this journal essentially is my gift to him, but it's also my gift to other parents to be able to do these things, because I'm sure that there is more than one sentimental person out here who wants to capture things and just be present in the moment and then to be able to capture those moments and later on be able to transport yourself in your mind back into that moment where you can relive that feeling and that sense of gratitude when these events happened. So that way, when you do feel like these moments have went by so fast, you've at least captured that and can gift that to your child.
Speaker 1:So that's what I've been working on lately. I have been. I listed it on Amazon, so if you search Katie Courier or Let Us To Ollie, it pops up as one of the first few things, which I think is really cool and I don't know I've ordered a lot of them for myself as well, to be able to like, share them with people and to be able to get that message out into the world. And I've also been doing something outside of my comfort zone. In the theme of this season is doing things when you're scared, and doing them anyway is.
Speaker 1:I've actually been creating TikTok videos and for me, going on video and putting myself out on social media and all of those things, it's a little scary for me because I'm someone who's introverted, I'm someone who has this false pretense of if I put myself out there, people will criticise me. And while that's most likely the case, I have now reached a point where I'm so passionate about what I've created and the gift that it can give to parents and their children and that ripple impact on the world that if people don't like it, if people have something nasty to say about it, or maybe how I look on social media or how I stumbled on a word, or if it's not for them, then thank you. Next, like that Brene Brown adage of if you are not in the ring with me and fighting the same entrepreneurship battle, your opinion doesn't matter to me, like it's invalid. If you're not battling your own inner demons of entrepreneurship to become better and to contribute to the world, I'm not interested in your feedback. So I have actually been doing daily parenting prompts. So I've been pulling the parenting prompts from the journal and been doing TikTok videos and even yesterday was filming some content with me and the book doing like kind of like TikTok transitions, so things that are really out of my comfort zone, and we'll edit those and put them on TikTok.
Speaker 1:But A being on video is not something I would have thought pre having my son or like as much as I am now and then kind of like actively being on TikTok. As far as like making content, I granted, I lived on TikTok consuming the content, no problem, but I thought, well, this, I need to flip it. I need to flip it to be from consuming to creating and that's the only way that those that stuff is going to get out there. So I hope that some of me sharing my scaries as far as what I'm doing anyway with you is hopefully inspiring. I feel like this is taking on a whole new podcast season, but also clearly season of my life now being a first time mum and having that. Don't give a shit about your opinion mentality. If someone is going to say something negative on a video, it doesn't hold any weight. If someone has a legitimate critique that comes from a place of caring, then that's something altogether, but as something that is just a meaningless or an empty comment, then doesn't water off. A duck's back is going to be how I embrace that and also even, I suppose, as a you know, the personal growth point is being comfortable with self promoting, and previously I would be shy and downplay what I have to offer, or basically be like oh yes, no big deal. I made this like just shove it off essentially as being it's no big deal, but the thing that prompted my change as far as being willing to self promote I thought about it in the frame of so more motherhood stories, because these are the aha moments are coming from.
Speaker 1:I purchased a I was shown a basically like small business Australian brand for breast feeding shirts, and these shirts are unique in the fact they have really really well concealed zippers down each side of the shirt and they're just regular t-shirts that have these basically seamless, invisible zippers, so you don't even know it's a breastfeeding shirt and it's just super duper handy just being able to quick zip and nurse Oli and then zip and go about your day. And I was raving about this company and it's called Gold Milk and it's milk with two eyes and it's incredible. Yes, I didn't realize it was a small business, that I was communicating directly with the person who was the owner of this and I was just asking look, is there any way that I could help promote this brand? Because I just loved it. I ordered two shirts I don't know three shirts. Unfortunately, one was too small, so I had to do an exchange, hence communicating with customer service, and then wanted to order the replacement and order another shirt, and because the quality was just so good and the fabric was so like, thick enough that you could wear a colored bra underneath it, under a white shirt, and you wouldn't see it. So I thought that in itself, for the fabric quality was amazing and I was just anyone who would listen. I would say, hey, these are fantastic, like check these out.
Speaker 1:I thought, well, what if I applied that same promotion excitement about my own stuff that I am so excited about? What if I flipped that? What difference would come from it? And why wouldn't I share something that I'm so excited about, that I created? I don't know if you're the same way as me as far as feeling a little bit more reserved or a little bit more held back about your own products. You know about the things you offer, but this is my encouragement to you what if you talked about your products in the same way you would for someone else? Because you probably would have no problem raving about a brand or a product that you loved that wasn't yours, and you would want to tell anyone who would listen essentially, or something who it would apply to. So, using that same mentality with your own products, be proud of what you create.
Speaker 1:I put a lot of labor of love into this letters to Olly Journal, so I want to essentially shout it from the rooftop, because I can see how it can just give a beautiful gift to a new parent and a baby shower, even to the child as they grow up. I can just I don't know see people holding onto these books for many years to then be able to gift this to their child at the point where they can understand and truly appreciate the volume of what this means. And it's likely to be at least an 18-year turnaround journey before the fruits of that appreciation can really come from these things. But I don't know. There's something beautiful about capturing these moments and that's the part that I really want to share and how, in me, doing that and having that passion, has led to me having that breakthrough of well, let's talk about our own products and our own stuff with a level of pride we would have anything else. So that's it for this week.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed hearing about my latest product, letters to Olly and if you are interested, if you search Letters to Olly on Amazon, it will come up, and I highly recommend getting the hardcover book just because it feels so much fancier than the paperback. But there is obviously both options for whichever is appropriate. I am looking at if there is an option to do like a PDF, electronic version. I mean, I want to be able to cover stuff for everyone, but it doesn't feel the same as holding that physical, tangible book in your hands. I feel like getting being gifted that book is a little bit more meaningful if it's a physical copy as opposed to is this PDF file I've been saving for so long. And yeah, that's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed the episode and go ahead and promote your products as proud as you are, because they are awesome, just like you Talk to you next week.