We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laren and Aimee Loveless. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laren and Aimee below.
Laren and Aimee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Aimee: Taking a risk is scary. There’s so many unknowns in leaving the comfort of a steady paycheck. What will others think? Will we be able to pay our bills? What if we regret the decision? What about retirement? All of these questions stirred around in my head for months before leaving my teaching career after 13 years in education. I loved teaching and had a very meaningful job as an ESL teacher. I loved connecting with immigrant and refugee families and their profound appreciation and respect for educators. I loved hearing their stories and learning about their cultures. I had a deep connection with many families that I was proud of. I would find myself at their apartment after school dropping off things they needed, or being a listening ear to the deep and painful stories they shared. It was often a heavy job, carrying around the pain of their stories and struggles, but it was also one of immense joy. I felt deeply grateful to help them and knew if I wanted to help their children learn, I had to help them with their basic needs.
As our family grew from one to two children, it became more difficult to find affordable childcare. Despite having more than one Master’s degree, and over a decade of experience teaching, childcare would be a huge portion of my salary. I took a one year leave from teaching, with the intention of returning the following year. As the year went on and I became immersed in all that goes into raising two children, I knew it was time to take a risk with an idea we had been sitting on for a few years. In April of 2022, I officially resigned from my teaching position. What I didn’t expect to happen was the feelings that came with leaving a service driven career. Grief, sadness, guilt were few of the many emotions I felt for months afterwards. As time went on, I’ve felt great peace and joy with my decision. It’s been more than I’ve ever dreamed to create our own business and have the flexibility to focus on our family. I hope I can inspire others to take a risk. Life is short, don’t wait.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Laren and I are both educators, parents, and long time St.Louis City residents. We love our neighborhood and connecting people in the community. Laren is a musician, educator, actor, recording artist and singer-songwriter. While we had always dreamed of starting our own music program, it wasn’t until the height of the Covid lockdown that we started to test out some outside of the box ideas. We began live streaming music from our living room to an audience on Facebook. It grew quickly and our concerts moved from the living room to our front porch and were dubbed the name “Quarantunes”. Each week we took requests and live streamed music to an online audience as well as a social distanced crowded in front of our house. Neighbors brought blankets and chairs and lined the sidewalk and street in front of our house. We knew we had something special and the ability to connect people, even in a time that we felt disconnected.
Then in April of 2022, I resigned after 13 years teaching. We knew it was time to focus on our dream of creating our own music program. As the spring blossomed into summer, we came back to the idea we had years ago. We are very passionate about music, education and most of all the importance of play. We had always talked about starting our own early childhood music program after taking our own son to a music class when he was 2 years old. We knew it was time to take the risk. I threw a flier together and started sharing it on social media with our own circle of friends, local mom groups and in our community. I had no clue if people would sign up for these classes. They were in a park in our neighborhood, so we didn’t have much overhead costs if no one showed up. Before we knew it, our summer classes were full. We continued to offer classes in the fall, adding more time slots on Saturdays and increasing our enrollment to 45+ families. We secured an indoor location for the winter and have over 45 families enrolled in our Saturday morning classes. This has been the greatest blessing in our careers, as parents, as educators, and now as business partners.
We bring a unique background as educators, parents and business partners. We share a love for world travel and incorporate culture and music into all of our classes. Our backgrounds in teaching allow us to create engaging classes where children have the opportunity to learn while having fun and connecting with their family. There are so many benefits to early childhood music exposure including increased social, language and motor development.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Our sole mission that drives our creative journey is all about human connection. We live in fast times, where we have gotten used to packed schedules, working long hours, with little time for rest, connection and play. The goal of our music classes is to connect not only with yourself, but with your family. We want this to be a time to let go of all of the to do lists, and just be. Be present with your children. Feel that inner joy and freedom that your children feel when they hear music. The healing powers of music and the vibrational energy that it carries is so important now more than ever. Singing raises our vibrational level and releases oxytocin, which has a powerful effect on human connection.
In addition to connecting with our children, it’s an opportunity to connect with other parents and families. Covid isolated us from many experiences and opportunities for connection. Our oldest son missed out on over a year of story time at the library, play dates with friends, and so much more. While these opportunities were crucial to his development socially and emotionally, they were also crucial to ours as parents. We hope to connect families again in community with each other through our music classes, events for families, holiday parades, sing-a-longs and so much more we have in store. We are so excited to see where this journey takes.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Laren: I had to unlearn several lessons and develop new habits when I became a father. It was as if I had to rewire and reframe my mindset to a more mindful practice. This practice led me right back to my own childhood. It brought me back to the root, and helped me unlock barriers that were preventing me from loving myself, accepting love, and then being loved. This was deeply rooted from trauma in my childhood and habitual patterns that I was repeating. Influential books like Atomic Habits by James Clear helped me identify my own triggers and my own addictions, which helped me along the road of sobriety. From the way I was living my life, to the way I managed my time. It allowed me to bear witness to my own energy, and what I was devoting it to.
It also led me to podcasts like Glennon Doyle’s: We Can Do Hard Things, that highlighted empathizing with women’s perspective, as well as Glennon’s own journey through addiction similar to my own. Another amazing resource that reshaped my outlook is the Good Inside podcast with Dr Becky, which brought me to two books that changed my entire mindset. From how I start my morning routine, to the way I communicate with others, and my inner child. Internal Family Systems, by Richard C. Schwartz helped begin the training of identifying different parts of me and my thoughts, and how to communicate with these individual parts/emotions. Then, to be able to share this knowledge with others, specifically with children. The final book I will mention is What Happened To You?, by Oprah Winfrey. This book was immensely helpful to my progress and it helped me redirect the way I was parenting. It allowed me to honor my children and students even more so and to see life through their lens. Too many times I was told that there was “something wrong with me”, rather than considering what might have happened to me, which further contributed to my trauma. These books have helped immensely on my journey as a father, educator, husband, and friend. They have helped me accept, forgive, heal, and grow spiritually, and learn to love myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.larenlovelessmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laren_loveless_music/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/larenlovelessmusic/
Image Credits
Dustin Walker Photography, Amanda Weber Photography