Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melva LaJoy Legrand. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Melva LaJoy , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

Is it possible to say my parents used every aspect of love and poured it into me. From my view, my parents did everything right. From my mother, because of her relentless love and in spite of some very serious childhood insecurities, I knew I was beautiful, smart and belonged. I saw in my mother (and continue to see) a woman who has always liked herself. Who was both soft and firm. Who was confident without being arrogant and who had a power that she yielded for good. My mother showed me what faith in service looked like. My mother is who I saw as my first example of an experience designer, and I have to credit my mother for my fashion choices because she has always been bold.

My Dad, my namesake, Melvin was the complete opposite. He was quiet but when he spoke it had meaning. He was focused and unbothered by worldliness. My father was very clear about his focus which was me and my mother. From him I received my relentless work ethic and while I have not perfected it by any stretch of the imagination I try to be very thoughtful with my words and I stand by everything I said, even if I was having a bad day. My father taught me what personal accountability looks like, he told me to dream and create and when I fell deep into depression throughout my life, my father brought me out of it not with a promise of a perfect life but rather with an honest conversation that I deserve a chance to live, exist and become whatever I want to be.

I am grateful to have grown up with a healthy relationship with my parents because I think healthy love can expand you. It can heal you and it can help you when the world feels lonely. When the weight of my business or just life responsibilities get to me, I think about my parents, I think about their love for me and I think about how being loved that deeply just means that anything negativity is temporary. My parents together were a doubt killer and a dream restorer.

Melva LaJoy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Many people know how I got into this business; I fell in love with event planning and this is the longest and most rewarding relationships of my entire life. However, I would like to express why I stay in this business. For me, this business represents my chance to have a legacy that endures because at the core of LaJoy Creative is how we care for people through gatherings and when I am long gone, I hope people remember fondly the events they attended that maybe I had a role in. It is not important to me that they say my name. It is more important that they hold onto to the feeling. With our recent creative projects which has involved more writing, I have seen people moved to tears, hugs, happy dances and more. At the end of the day, LaJoy Creative is a collective of some of the best professionals I have ever had the pleasure of working with. We make people feel good. Our art is creative experiences, and we are absolutely powered by joy. I am thankful.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I think the best source, and, in some cases, the only source of new clients is your current clients. I can trace almost every single client to a conversation that a current or former client has had with someone. Here is the thing: I am crystal clear that there are plenty of companies that do the same type of work. There are some exceptional professionals doing awe-inspiring things, so you have to take a look at yourself and really ask: Why me? Why do people say my name in different rooms? I can assure you it is not because I am perfect. I am messy. I have survived trauma and I will continue to make mistakes, but when my company takes on a project, I am all in, I am high touch, I am collaborative and I try really hard to be kind. So, I think the fact that LaJoy Creative is human forward is how our brand value has expanded because it is real and there are very few experiences like events which expose a person’s full humanity. When we work on these projects, we see HR issues, financial issues, burnout and the upside which is the beauty that occurs when you are aligned, experience endless collaboration, and creativity so at the end of the day, I feel strongly that new clients invest in us because they want us in the trenches with them and because we have such rich client relationships, they can confidently express who we are and what we are about.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I am currently unlearning the concept of being on. I think it is very unique to being American and let me be clear, I love that I am living my version of the American dream but the truth is that if you are only ‘on’ in work which so many of us are and I often can fall into this pattern, it means you are ‘off’ in life. It means your relationships suffer, your rest is not what it should be and when you look in the mirror you may be accomplished but you are also freakishly exhausted. Does that make sense?

I think the backstory comes from everything we see if we are being honest. Being on = value. Being seen=worthy and my backstory is probably like many other people that I suffered from depression and deep insecurities when I was younger.

I am excited to say that being exposed to Europe, Paris specifically has debunked this myth. I am clear that being is actually enough. I will continue to do great work. I do not think balance is a thing but I think you can choose to be ‘on’ for yourself, for your life, for your family and what I have found is that when I do that my work is just flat out better because light attracts light and people want to hire people who are real humans not ‘on’ a validation tour. It is a good place to be right now at this stage in my career.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lajoycreative.com
• Instagram: @lajoycreative @belajoyful
• Linkedin: Melva LaJoy Legrand and LaJoy Creative
• Youtube: LaJoy Creative

Image Credits

My main photo: Bonnie Love-Douglass, D2Focus
Other photos:
Lauren Scott Studios
Stefan A Photography
Ronald Flores Photography
Ruth Annan
The Homies Collective