This week Larissa chats with Molly McGlynn an award-winning writer and director. Molly’s second feature film Fitting in (fka Bloody Hell), starring Maddie Ziegler and Emily Hampshire, had its World Premiere at SXSW in the Narrative Spotlight section in March 2023. Molly has TV credits on Wonder Years and Big Door Prize. She also hosts a podcast called Hello My Mom is Dead with Molly McGlynn.

Larissa & Molly chat:

• What Molly was like in middle school
• Molly’s Irish heritage and growing up the youngest of 5 girls in Pleasantville New Jersey
• How weird it is to have divorced parents
• A gut sense of not being like her peers
• Not being able to articulate the sense of uneasiness around her
• Making amends to our bodies after abandoning them
• Working out and mental health
• Molly’s sober journey
• How everyone suffers from some “-ism”
• Going on a silent retreat
• How intimidating meditating is
• When people think they know you, but they don’t, and how weird that is
• Alchemizing hardship
• Hello My Mom is Dead podcast
• Grief and the absurd
• How intense people are about labels and how it’s pointless
• Stopping pretending we are all fine

Follow Molly:

• @MollyMaryMcGlynn (IG)
• Learn more about Molly at: mollymarymcglynn.com
• Listen to Hello my Mom is Dead podcast

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn IG)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board

(VIDEO PODCAST AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY AND YOUTUBE) This week, Larissa sits down to tell some of her latest boundaries stories that she’s never shared before alongside her sister Serena.

Larissa & Serena chat:

• Larissa’s boundary storytime
• What it means to grey rock
• How being boring is a helpful way to make people loose interest in you
• How triggering boundaries are
• Having boundaries with people we’re not close with
• The pain/trauma around boundaries
• How vulnerable having boundaries is
• How boundaries make us less open
• Being afraid of what people will think of us when we put up boundaries
• People who forget/don’t acknowledge boundaries
• Serena’s favorite boundary
• Boundary alter egos

Follow and connect with all things @SeriouslyAuthentic across Instagram and YouTube.

STREAM SERIOUSLY AUTHENTIC: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...

Follow Larissa:

@larissavictora

Follow Serena:

@serenaboard

Talent Advisor: Serena Board

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

This week Larissa speaks with Mimi Munoz, Cannes Silver Lion recipient and Executive Producer.

Mimi is a first-generation Vietnamese-American daughter of refugees. Mimi has produced award-winning social impact films “The Myth” and “Call it Covid.” Mimi is the Global Creative Producer for Wieden + Kennedy. Mimi tells stories of people and marginalized communities. She is an advisor for Asiancy, Wieden + Kennedy’s Asian ERG. Mimi and her work have been featured in the New York Times, Fast Company, Ad Age, and Adweek.

Larissa & Mimi chat:

• Being a kid, being shy, and keeping your head down
• Wanting to make her parents proud more than anything else
• Growing up in a family that was in survival mode
• Mimi feeling it was necessary for her to experience being shy and withdrawn as a kid because her story resonates with people today
• How important it is for her to show her two daughters how to love themselves and embrace all the things that make them unique
• How Mimi moves through the world so unapologetically
• Making Call it Covid regardless of the consequences to help her community
• The angry late-night phone call that led to Call it Covid
• How exhausting it is to try and be everything for someone else
• Advocating for others and how Mimi’s love language is words of affirmation
• Imposter syndrome and how Mimi was approached to work at Wieden + Kennedy
• Trying hard to replicate what success looked like in the workplace, and how that never worked because she didn’t look like them or have their experience
• Fashion insecurities and role models
• Not apologizing for how you feel
• Elevating more voices not just celebrities
• Mimi’s Superpower and her new podcast “Hi Love with Mimi”
• Letting go of needing to give all parts of yourself to friendships

Follow Mimi:

• @mimitieuvo (IG)
• Mimi Munoz (LinkedIn)
• Check out Mimi’s films callitcovid.com

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn IG)
• Work with me (1:1 Coaching)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board

(VIDEO PODCAST SPOTIFY & YOUTUBE)

This week, join Larissa on her first solo and video episode.

Larissa Seriously Authentic Host goes in-depth on her current struggles with social media.

Larissa chats:

• Planning more lifestyle and vlog content
• Her feed used to be hyper-curated
• How interning at Seventeen Magazine influenced Larissa's idea social media
• The idea that constructing an image on social media would make her cool
• Workaholism & social media
• Life coaching and how it changed Larissa’s relationship with social media
• Comparing yourself to your hypothetical self
• The emotional roller coaster that is social media
• The feeling of being “okay” but just feeling bleh
• General anxiety
• Status & capitalism
• Having boundaries in the friend circle
• Realizing different friends don’t fit into your life anymore
• How hard it is to have boundaries is hard as an adult
• It’s okay not to have all the answers

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn IG)
• Work with me (1:1 Coaching)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board

This week, Larissa speaks with Marijke McCandless, mindfulness Life Coach, and author.

Marijke McCandless is a mindfulness life coach. Marijke’s second book, Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present, is a unique and playful guide for anyone feeling disconnected from their vitality and uninspired to make a change. It is coming out in July. She leads a popular online writing practice called Write Now Mind, which has been called out by media icons such as Arianna Huffington. She also leads guided awareness practice sessions, called Juicy Practices for Getting Present, plus other immersion experiences in meditation, writing, and enlivenment.

Larissa & Marijke chat:

• The challenges Marijke faced in her 36-year marriage
• How she and her husband choose to get to know one another on a deeper level
• Experiencing childhood sexual trauma
• Shame and facing the parts of our lives that had unknowingly affected us
• What it felt like to talk about shame and secrets for the first time
• Writing a memoir under a pen name
• Why Marijke chose to write under a pen name and not her real name
• Feeling it was unfair to have her story affect her family
• How her pen name allowed her not to feel her identity was forever attached to victimhood
• Dealing with perfectionism as a writer
• When Marijke hit rock bottom at a silent retreat
• Marijke’s freeing moment of realizing she is inadequate and will always be
• Her book Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present
• Why use “naked” in the title of a self-help book
• Using nakedness as a metaphor for what it’s like to shed outdated identities
• Shaking up stigmas around body image and ageism
• How the self-help world can feel so serious and stuffy
• Adding more play to self-help
• The importance of not taking your job too seriously

Follow Marijke:

• @MarijkeMcCandless (IG / LinkedIn)
• Learn more about Marijke at: marijkemccandless.com
• Check out Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present
• Link to Inner Striptease Starter kit

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn IG)
• Work with me (1:1 Coaching)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board

This week, Larissa speaks with Sam Mirpoorian , an award-winning Iranian-American filmmaker.

Sam explores societal themes at the intersection of time, isolation, health, and science. Sam has been busy promoting his first documentary feature, Greener Pastures, which follows 4 farmers across the Midwest. It documents their day-to-day lives on small multigenerational farms over the course of 5 years. The film is about mental health, industry nation, food production, and climate change. Sam started out doing everything: producing, directing, and driving hundreds of miles. Along the way, he got funding and support from Emmy-nominated producers. Greener Pastures was acquired by PBS and is now being screened.

Larissa & Sam chat:

• Growing up under pressure to excel, influenced by his father's Iranian heritage
• His father, a tech supervisor, exposing Sam to technology and filming everything with a camcorder, which kickstarted Sam’s love for hands-on storytelling
• Whether it was worth it to have a childhood so focused on the hustle and grind
• Sam championing mental health during the making of Greener Pastures
• Mental health’s connection to shame and secrecy
• The importance of “just listening”
• The 5 years making greener pastures, crashing on farmers’ couches, starting with no money
• Thinking Greener Pastures was never going to get finished
• When a mentor told Sam his characters were not compelling
• Driving across the Midwest alone: Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin
• Social sacrifice, not seeing friends or dating
• Submitting Greener Pastures to 18 film festivals, rejected by all of them
• Starting with no money to linking up with David & Linda Cornfield Emmy Award-Winning Producers and getting funding money
• Sam’s pitching story, and being honest that he was 25 years old, had no producer, and was shooting sorority videos on the weekends
• Self-comparison on social media
• Future filmmaking dreams. Top of the list, making a high school basketball story
• Letting go of over-promising under-delivering
• Feeling like an adult for the first time

Follow Sam:

• @WorkofSam (IG)
• Check out Greener Pastures
• Screen Greener Pastures on PBS

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn IG)
• Work with me (1:1 Coaching)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board

This week, Larissa speaks with Lauren Yoshiko, the cannabis author and journalist.

Lauren Yoshiko is a cannabis journalist who just published her first book, Green Scenes: A Guide to Legal Cannabis Destinations, in the US. Lauren got her start writing about weed under a fake name at Portland alt-weekly Willamette Week in 2014. Lauren was afraid she would lose her finance day job if anyone found out. After weed was legalized in Oregon, Lauren was on the front lines of reporting about weed before it was mainstream and went on to cover all facets of legal cannabis. She has been published in Forbes, Rolling Stone, Condé Nast, Thrillist, and Broccoli Magazine.

Larissa & Lauren chat:

• Growing up in a small town playing dress up with her little sister and needing to create your own fun
• Being 5th generation Japanese American in a majority white small town
• Lauren wanted to be "popular" in student body government, ran for homecoming queen
• Having friends with different political views taught Lauren not to be afraid of having disagreements with friends and respecting her friend's different POVs
• The feeling of being culturally "white" with zero sense of Asian identity outside of the bi-annual trip to an Asian food store
• Smoking weed, allowed Lauren to be more introspective
• Moving out of Roseburg to Santa Cruz for college and feeling so un-asian for the first time and wanting to fit in to the western expectations of beauty and be blonde
• Lauren lived with her Grandma after college, and realizing she has a legacy of Japanese American life in Portland, OR
• Labels and nationalism are overrated and create division
• Lauren recounts how scary it is to be a woman who is outspoken about the weed industry; a lot of women don't talk about smoking weed
• Lauren has bonded more with people because of shared interests & and not solely shared heritage
• In 2014, Lauren shared writing about weed under a fake name for Willamette Week while still working a day job
• The mentorship & master class in editing Lauren received at Broccoli Mag and the evolution of Sticky Bits News
• The red tape around cannabis advertising and marketing
• Lauren's book Green Scenes, the first-ever travel guide to cool, ethically-operated legal cannabis destinations across the US
• Lauren talks about the reward of telling people's stories, from family weed lounges in Boston to horse healing and weed

Follow Lauren:

• @laurenyoshiko (IG / LinkedIn)
• Sign up for Sticky Bits News
• Check out Green Scenes: A Guide to Legal Cannabis Destinations in the US

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn IG)
• Work with me (1:1 Coaching)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board

This week, Larissa speaks with Simone Jackson, Global Brand Manager of Spotify and Forbes 30 Under 30 2024, Marketing & Advertising Recipient.

Simone Jackson leads global marketing initiatives and brand campaigns for Spotify, including this year's Spotify Wrapped. She was recently awarded Forbes 30 Under 30, 2024 Marketing & Advertising. As a former D1 athlete, Simone has gone on to acquire a roster of Advertising awards from industry heads like ADCOLOR to the American Advertising Federation. Simone spends her free time as a mentor at 4A and Spotify's PULSE Fellowship Program, a 1-year creative development program for Black professionals.

Larissa & Simone chat:

• Simone talks about how she had a “resume at 9” and was born ambitious
• Simone’s parents encouraged her to try new things
• How being a motivated “can do” kid can cause perfectionism
• Being a D1 track athlete and how those were “the best years” of Simone’s life
• Not being afraid to own ambition and confidence
• How the question “What do you do for fun?” can be embarrassing if you are solely goal focused and don’t have outside interests
• Simone shares how she even thought about monetizing her hobby. Then took a step back, and reframed that mindset to leave the business hat off and just do it because she loved it
• How asking the question: “What did you love you when you were a kid?” is a way to unlock your authenticity
• Being off IG allows Simone to not justify what she wants and desires through the lens of others
• The surprise of realizing who is not staying in touch when you're off IG
• How easy it is to put off building community when you won’t be in a place for long, but how rewarding it can be to find community no matter how short or long your stay there
• What it is like to receive more public attention for 30 Under 30, and how people suddenly come out of the woodwork to reconnect
• Simone talks about the duality of being a private person with a public persona
• Good leadership is knowing you are not alone in decision-making, you need to let people in, and consult people
• Leadership is encouraging people to show up as themselves
• The connection between being authentic and having boundaries
• How assumptions are part of people-pleasing
• How Simone encourages getting feedback from the people she cares about and wants to have an open dialogue about how people perceive her
• Letting go of the pressure to do “everything that I thought I was going to do”
• How Simone is enjoying binging reality TV

Follow Simone:

• Simoneljackson (Linkedin)
• Learn more about Simone at www.simonelynelle.com

Follow Larissa:

• Sign up for Seriously Authentic Newsletter with resources, tips, insights on how to be your most authentic self to achieve your dream life.
• @larissavictoria (LinkedIn + IG)
• Work with me (1:1 Coaching)

Original music by Haile Meirow “inside your tears”

Talent Advisor Serena Board