Meet Carolina Cuellar | Lifestyle & Motherhood Content Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carolina Cuellar and we’ve shared our conversation below.

What was your thought process behind starting your own business?
The thought process in anything I do starts with the intention of helping others and bridging the gap between who I am and who I want to be. When I had my son in Dec. 2018, it sparked a world of difficulties I had never experienced. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. As a first time mom, it made me realize how challenging yet rewarding motherhood could be, so I started sharing my journey in hopes others would help us. Two new young parents, learning. We found that becoming a stay at home mom was more convenient and important to our family, however, I wanted a hobby that would bring in extra income to our home if I was leaving my job as an accountant. A hobby I always had a passion for was crafting, so I started a small business as a stay at home mom and shared the experience of it all through social media. Eventually, other moms began asking me for advice on motherhood, lifestyle, and small business. Shortly after, Covid-19 happened. The effect of the pandemic gave me the chance to take a step back to realize my intentions, skills, and work that would get me to the best version of myself during a stressful time in our lives. I’m a mother, spouse, student and entrepreneur. As I work towards balance in my life, my ultimate goal is to be the best version of myself, create a healthy family and foundation, and raise a well rounded child. As a parent, there is no better way to instill values in a child than to lead by example. I want my children to know if you hustle hard towards your goals, stay true to yourself and do everything with confidence, your success will follow. Anything I do from making t-shirts, baking, marketing, content creating etc. I’ve had a huge support group behind me. I know those same followers/supporters will be right behind me and that’s not something everyone can say they have; it’s a blessing in itself that I can’t let go to waste. The process behind my content is creating a relatable and helpful platform to those in my community, especially mothers. Whether it’s to find a useful product, offer advice, or share an experience or ideas.

Do you have a budget? How do you think about your personal finances and how do you make lifestyle and spending decisions?
We’re learning as we go, we are conscious about our spending but we don’t have a particular budget. For our little family, it works best and is important for us to enjoy our lives while saving and thoroughly thinking before making a decision to purchase something. We ask ourselves: “Could I make money with this? Does this serve a purpose towards a future goal?” Not to say we don’t make financial mistakes or splurge sometimes, but we are mindful of our goals and the foundation we want to build for our child, while still enjoying the present moment. We live within our means and consider our desires. Within this lifestyle, we have been able to slowly work towards financial freedom and reach milestones such as owning our own house at a young age. It’s what has worked for us in our journey to balance life!

Risk taking: how do you think about risk? What role has taken risks played in your life/career?
I grew up being afraid to take risks. I was always walking on eggshells focusing on the negative things that can happen or that could go wrong or that people wouldn’t support me.. but risks is just an intimidating word for opportunities. Throughout my life, I noticed my dad was fearless and I looked up to him for that. I recall him telling me before a retreat “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do” & I responded “Well… there’s nothing you WOULDN’T do”. It wasn’t until the recent years where I realized I had wasted so much time being afraid of risks and the only thing I lost out on were experiences and rewards. Within the risk of letting the fear of judgment get in the way of content creation, I have scored 3 sponsorships, an ambassador position, and collabs, in only 2 months. This is the beginning of my influencer journey and there’s no guarantee that I will succeed, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Spectacularcaro has been my social media handle for all platforms since I was younger which eventually was the name people would recognize me as. What sets me apart from others is that I do it all! People are always asking, “what are you doing now?!”. I also am recognized by the obstacles people have seen me overcome to creating the beautiful life and family I have now. I am most proud of my family and my success in anything I choose to do and the relationships I have built. I am excited to grow as an influencer and provide my community with brand awareness and products or connections useful to their individual differences. Hard work, dedication, consistency, and confidence has got me to where I am today in my journey! It was not at all easy but with my support system it has made the transition and growth smoother. I have learned to do what makes me happy, stay true to myself, and be confident, the success will align itself to your values. I want everyone to know the journey of finding myself and growing is not always rainbows and butterflies, but that everyone has a purpose in life and deserves success. Your failures, trauma, or obstacles shouldn’t define the end of your story, instead they should shape the path to your ultimate goals.

Where are you from and how did your background and upbringing impact who you are today?
I’m from Houston, TX. I was raised by my aunt and grandma in North Houston and later moved in with my parents and was brought up in Southeast Houston. My upbringing and trauma is significant to the choices I make and share in my life, as a mother and spouse. My lifestyle and what I want to contribute through my platform is that you can either come out of a situation and use it against your fate by continuing the cycle or let it benefit you to better yourself, your future, family, and those around you. For as long as I can remember, my life lacked structure growing up, but it motivated me to work towards creating stability in my child’s future. As a lifestyle influencer, being a mom is a big part of my platform. Being the best version of myself as a mother and an individual while balancing the rest out is what I hope to inspire others with. Who I am today was shaped from my background experiences and gives me knowledge on what parts of my child’s life and as a spouse, I could be better in. Alongside of this, my parents and aunt show me the support in everything and the importance of what it means to have a foundation, which as parents, we are confidently working towards to be for our own son.

What is the most important factor behind your success / the success of your brand?
The most important factor behind my success is to break the cycle, share motherhood reality, and align my values with parenthood. Mine and my partner’s parenting styles derive from our different childhood experiences and nothing would have prepared us for the things life is constantly throwing our way, but one thing is for certain, we always get through it. I take pride in the authenticity and transparency I offer in my content. I don’t want to be an influencer that seems to have a perfect life, that’s not realistic to me; I want people to see it’s possible to not to have that and still be successful. As parents it is important to know there should be a balance to your relationship and parenthood, without feeling guilty about it! In motherhood, self-care is frowned upon or seems impossible, but behind my success and happiness, there is a lot of it. I take pride in investing into my physical and emotional energy to take care of our family. Self-care looks different to everyone, and I believe in big and well known brands needing micro influencers like myself to boost brand awareness and how to incorporate certain products into everyday life. In the creator world it is easy to get lost or discouraged with how saturated the field is, but I believe there is so much room for growth and success for everyone. When I made the decision to embark on a career as an influencer, I set the intentions of my brand to show a balance between life. Parenting is hard enough, I just hope I can build a relationship with my audience to help one another and create a safe space.

What value or principle matters most to you? And why?
Integrity and trust are values that matter most to me because it says alot about your character. I believe these are both beneficial to creating professional relationships. To better ourselves and achieve personal growth, you must stay consistent and true to yourself. Within decision making, integrity is important because you don’t want to have to pretend you’re someone else and hide behind a second personality to gain an audience. These values matter most to me because as a growing influencer I value my audience’s trust and respect along with any brands I work with.

Work life balance: how has your balance changed overtime? How do you think about the balance?
Since I have started my content creating journey it has definitely added more on my plate, however, there’s constant change and growth everyday. The work towards balance is based on incorporating in my plan to make commitments relative to my capacity and individual family differences. Balance means different things to everyone, and when we realize that, it becomes an advantage to your success and happiness. What I enjoy sharing on my platform is the benefits of self-care and relationship bonding outside of parenting. These benefits are something that show in our lifestyle rather than selling it as advertisement. It took us a while after becoming parents to realize the importance of dates and self-care time individually. I have definitely grown in creating a balance between work and life. It was a struggle for me to understand it was ok to leave our child and take a few hours out of every week to refill our own cup before pouring our energy into him. This realization strengthened our relationship and my mental health the more I practiced it.

What’s the end goal? Where do you want to be professionally by the end of your career?
Ultimately, I would like to be a well known influencer that helps people with parenting, selfcare, life, and recommendations through consistent engaging content. It is also an important goal to build trustworthy relationships with brands and my audience. I plan for my followers to reach milestones with me in our lives, such as graduating, teaching career, and learning to grow as a mother/family or anything else that follows. Living in Houston, there is so much to explore as a family and couple as well. There are influencers with larger platforms than myself that have been an inspiration to me as a mother and by the end of my career I hope to have helped other parents and young adults to encourage growth, health, stability, and lifestyle balancing just as they did.

Why did you pursue an artistic or creative career?
I believe I have always had a creative personality whether it was crafts, content, baking, etc. I am pursuing a creative career as an influencer while also working towards my degree in teaching. Eventually, my creative flow will bring my lifestyle changes and platform together. The influencing part of my career goal allows me to have creative control in daily vlogs or posts and best of all, allows me the freedom to involve my son without taking quality time away from us. It’s also important to enjoy what you do everyday and a creative career has been filled with much more enjoyment than I can imagine in anything else.

Tell us about a book you’ve read and why you like it / what impact it had on you.
The most informative book I have read most recently is the What to Expect series. I began this series when I was expecting my son. I was never into books and couldn’t get hooked on anything that wasn’t informative or relatable to my life. This was a gifted book from my aunt that impacted me by providing a general manual in this new chapter in my life. I enjoy this series because when I was experiencing postpartum, it helped me understand what I was going through, what was coming, and explained the milestones within each age. I knew I had support all around me, but this series was available to turn to for advice within reach at any time. If there is any book I recommend for new mothers, it would be the What to Expect series. As our free time is limited, this book thoroughly informs first time parents of the changes and challenges.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would hope they would visit during the Houston Rodeo season to show them what it’s all about including the concerts and delicious food if not, I would take them to an Astros game! Telewink, Barnaby’s, Cielito Cafe or The Breakfast Klub for breakfast. Champ Burger, Los Primos, Triple J’s Smokehouse, or Bosscat for lunch or dinner. It would be fun to explore brunch spots for mimosas or Habanera and The Guero for a delicious margarita stop! For a night out we could go to Midtown or Washington bars. NASA is a must for day activities! We could bike ride through downtown and plan a picnic with a downtown skyline view and visit the aquarium for site seeing.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My spouse for being my #1 supporter in everything I do! My parents and siblings for always encouraging me to get out of my comfort zone and seeing my potential. And My aunt Paulina for raising me while she was young and being an inspiration and loving me unconditionally.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spectacularcaro