Meet: Celeste Carr!

Hey mama hey! I’m Celeste Carr, CEO & Founder of Maximize Mama, a personal development brand for mamapreneurs! I provide working mamas and mamapreneurs with the strategies and tips they need to be the women of their dreams in their personal, family and business lives.

What inspired you to create your business/brand?
It all started when I was in college when I fell in love with personal development. I attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio. I was a team leader for a group of mentors for a multicultural campus organization. Before the fall semester started each year, the team leaders and mentors had to arrive earlier than the rest of the students to strategize our game plan for the upcoming school year to effectively reach the mentees so we could empower them to be their best for their best school year ever. I talked to the director of the organization and asked about doing some personal development trainings for the mentors. My idea was tossed out of the window. That’s a whole other story for a different day.
 
From there, I became a personal development junkie. I would frequently visit the local bookstores and libraries and check multiple self-help books and devouring them. (there were no podcasts then). It was 2006 and it was a sophomore in college. I got involved with a few multi-level marketing businesses and got my feet wet in entrepreneurship. I allowed myself to flunk out of college in 2008, the year that I was supposed to be graduating. Instead, I attended my “would-be” graduation and watched my twin sister graduate. Fast forward to 2015, I became a mom to my beautiful baby girl, Destiny that late August. At the time, I was a Mary Kay consultant.
 
As I got used to being a new mom, I started figuring out ways that I could get things done around my house and get my business stuff. Y’all, while my daughter was sleep, I would be making calls, setting appointments, cooking and cleaning. Now, I had my days where my life would ebb and flow but I found a system that worked for me.
 
In February 2016, I quit Mary Kay and started doing some virtual assistant work for a well-known, sought after women business coach and speaker, working 20 hours a week as her executive assistant. It was a blast! I would get up at 5 am and do a couple hours of work before my daughter woke up and then I would be doing work while she napped and sometimes did work while she watched cartoons. Last year, I got called back to work at a local credit union as an executive assistant to the CEO. Great money but it had nothing to do with the greatness on my life! So I got bored. I was still into personal development and women empowerment so I began to pursue my passion again around June 2017 as my side hustle.
 
Earlier this year, I looked around and there were no personal development brands geared specifically towards working mamas or mamapreneurs and since this was an area that I excelled in, why not give it a shot, I thought! I wanted to create a brand for the whole woman; one that would allow a mama to “have it all.” We can live in our wealthy place where time and money is no option, we can raise our kids that the way we want, our health and wellness is awesome, we have an amazing marriage and our relationship with God is on point. 
 
I believe before we were mamas and wives, we are women. More importantly, women with a purpose and destiny to fulfill. We all have divine assignments to complete on this earth. We must connect with that woman whom we were before we had our babies, before our husbands, heck, before we were of age. A lot of who we are meant to me can be found in the heart of the little girl inside of us.
 
What tips would you share with other Mompreneurs for juggling it all successfully?
 

• The first tip is to figure out what pockets of time you have to work on your personal and business development. First, create a monthly goal in three major areas of your life such as family, business and health/nutrition. Or you desire growing spiritually in your walk with God, read a personal development and spend more time with your husband and kids. This will help you better plan your weeks out better. When you have this written out, start with the first week of your month. Figure out what your daily goals are and what it is most important to you that day. Every day may be different. Make a list of your daily obligations and block out the times you work or your business hours as a full time mamapreneur, commute, kids’ extra curriculars, etc. Simply, “plug and play” your goals and your tasks from your to do list into your “pockets of time.”

 

• Batch tasks together for your business or home life. So I recently started taking one weekend to plan my social media content, captions and hashtags for the week ahead and plugging them into an app called Tallwind. 

 

• Get some accountability partners for your goals as well as be a part of a community of like-minded women. When you have someone holding you accountable for the things you want out of life, it gives you the fire you need to keep going when it gets tough. Plus when you have a community of ambitious women who are going for similar goals as you, you can have a support group to lean on and you all can help each other.

 

• Manage burnout by taking care of yourself on a regular basis. It’s easy to put our well-being on the back burner when we have so many irons in the fire. Make it  non-negotiable for you. There are tons of do out there. Read a book, pray, journal, take a bath, exercise, and get a mani/pedi are just a few examples. Nourish and nurture the cup you pour from! Give yourself grace for the hustle. Know when you need to just have a Netflix and chill day! 

 
What is next for you and your business?  
I will be launching my signature membership program in the fall for working mamas and mamapreneurs. We are going to be doing some big things in this group. From biweekly maximize chats with experts on confidence/self-esteem, productivity, money management, etc to weekly prayer calls, daily success strategies and much more!
 
I will be doing a beta launch of this membership program for the summer. DM me or email me at maximizemama@gmail.com for more details. I will be launching a podcast this summer as well.
 
To purchase your copy of The Glambitious Guide to Being a Mompreneur, visit www.maximizemama.com.
 
How can readers connect with you online?
 
You can subscribe to my Maximize Moments e-newsletter at www.maximizemama.com to stay in the loop of all things maximize mama related.
 
Follow me on Instagram @maximizemama and on Facebook @maximizemama
 
Join my Maximize Mama tribe on Facebook.