We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lauren Lajas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?

This might be a little controversial to say, but it’s the reason i took the leap to work for myself and essentially start my own business. I will start off by saying that in the past, i worked for smaller businesses. In doing so, employees tend to wear many hats and fulfill a variety of tasks not necessarily in their job description. Perfectly fine. I have always been a team player! At my last job before i decided to work for myself, i was put in a position that would require me to take on more responsibility. I wanted a raise not only because of this, but because i wanted to utilized my degree in PR and marketing to take not only the location i worked at to the next level, but the other 2 my bosses owned as well. The owners were ecstatic and on board with my proposal and rewarded me with a $.50 raise. $.50. I was beside myself. It was right then and there that i decided to put all my hard work and effort into my goals and aspirations. I know my bosses appreciated me, but you show that appreciation with financial compensation am i right? Enough with the pizza parties!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So i am a creative! I sing, write songs, have a podcast, and i am about to publish my first book. Are you even a millennial if you don’t have a blog as well? I will be starting my own You Tube series in the new year too so stay tuned! I have been singing and writing essentially my entire life so it wasn’t a surprise that i would turn my greatest passions into a career. I am a natural-born story teller and use many mediums to do just that. I recently started my own media business, but i have always been the ideas, not the execution, meaning, i am focusing on the ideas for various forms of digital media. I am choosing to focus on my own projects before i take on others but my dream would be to create a space where different stories are told. I tend to lean towards writing stories having to do with women and people of color, two demographics in the entertainment industry that could use more representation. I have ideas for screenplays and am currently learning how to effectively write them because one of my loftier ambitions would be to see one of my screenplays come to life on the big screen! Like the woman, the myth, the legend, Viola Davis once said, ” We (as in people of color) don’t lack the talent, just the opportunities,” and i took that to heart as a writer because those opportunities start with the ideas in our heads and putting them onto paper.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It is such a vulnerable process to share your art with people because you’re sharing little parts of yourself. When the art isn’t received well or not coming across how you perceived it, it’s almost as if that aspect of yourself is coming under the scrutiny, and that doesn’t always feel the best. I had to learn to get over that fear of rejection or being misunderstood because art was meant to be shared and felt and experienced! It is so rewarding for me to share a song and have people like it, whether it was my lyrics or the melody. It’s like yes! Mission accomplished. I have yet to release my book, but having so many others excited to read it, has reaffirmed my purpose in life, and that is to uplift and inspire others in any way i can. I had previously mentioned that i am working on screenplays as well. I have shared my ideas with my peers and the positive feedback i have gotten has given me the strength to keep going on this path i have put myself on. It hasn’t been an easy, but one that has already filled my life with such joy and i have barely scratched the surface!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

So, read my book! It is called “The Lost Cause Chronicles: Confessions of the Problem Child.” It is about my childhood, which is one huge story on resilience. The cliff notes version is that i grew up in foster care and was adopted by a family who let’s just say, didn’t make my situation any better. I was put into a children’s home and got myself kicked out. I then was dumped onto another family and that really took a toll on me. Throughout my childhood, i had been a victim of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and the scars it left should have ruined my life, and they almost did. I was written off as a lost cause because i let those negative emotions consume me and acted accordingly. But i realized at a young age that no one was going to save me. The world wasn’t going to give me a free pass just because i had it rough growing up. What was expected of me was to end up in jail, on drugs, or succumbing to an early death and i knew i wanted more for myself. I had to be better because i wanted better and i knew i possessed the inner strength to do so. I’ll be the first to admit that that fire within me is always ablaze, i have just learned to use it for something constructive instead of destructive. I have this persistent need to make the world a kinder place than it was to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lavielauren.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenlajas/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@laurenlajas
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/55xk2pdWlgyngGXMQg5ocb

Image Credits
Lisa Olsen