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Interviews with Female entrepreneurs, founders, co-founders, business owners, and industry Gurus. These podcasts speak with women (women-identified) across all industries in order to shed light for those just getting into the entrepreneurial game! Histories, current companies, and lessons learned are explored. The series is designed to investigate a female (female identified) perspective in what has largely been a male-dominated industry in the world to date.
Episodes
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Talking with Crys Noell; Financial Expert and Founder of T&T LLC
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Today I am talking with Crystal Noell. At the age of 4 with 20 words vocabulary, Crys was solidly in the foster care system. She graduated from high school as a valedictorian, obtained four college degrees, competitively swam and marched in the Fresno State Bulldog Marching Band. Numbers are magic to Crys and Financial Freedom is her life's purpose. In Crys' free time, she volunteers at Just In Time, a non profit organization for foster youth aging out of the foster care system. She also maintains her really fun hair.
Key points addressed were
- Fundamental tactics employed by T&T in their work to bring clients from across all industriels from various forms of debt into the black
- We also discussed the education Crys and her team provide to ensure best financial practices for her clients as they move into a debt free future.
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
Speaking with Sonya Barlow; Founder of Like-Minded females Network
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
Today I am speaking with Sonya Barlow. Sonya is the founder of LMF Network CiC, a global community dedicated to reducing inequalities and providing a foundation to succeed womxn and underrepresented individuals through life skills workshops, digital training, a supportive community, and access to expertise for everyone. She is also the founder of her own diversity consultancy and specialises in consulting on inclusive cultures, change management and confidence in the workplace.
Key points addressed were
- The efforts that her non-profit: like-minded females network is currently involved in around life skills workshops, digital training, and the similar endeavors
- We also discussed both of Sonya’s podcasts launched this year and how she achieved overnight success with the fluidity of the their launch and sponsorship
Tuesday Oct 13, 2020
Tuesday Oct 13, 2020
Today I am chatting with Tamsin Napier-Munn. Tamsin is an enthusiastic, skilled and energetic speaker and facilitator, whose business acumen and engaging style ensures that sessions are not only highly relevant but have a lasting positive impact. Tamsin’s eternal optimism for people and opportunities have helped drive her determination to successfully navigate her way through –like many people -a far from straight forward upbringing and career path.
Having had a highly successful sales career in B2B fashion, publishing and IT Consulting, Tamsin transitioned into training sales teams and management, and led a regional Dale Carnegie Training business. As host of The Women in Business Awards and Campaign for the last 5 years for The Business Magazine, Tamsin is passionate about tapping in to the power in us, pushing through doubts and taking charge of our careers and our lives. As a result of her experiences and determination to learn to speak up and step up, Tamsin has been inspired to reach out to those of us who haven’t yet found our voices to find the courage and skills to get seen and get heard.
Key points addressed were
- Tamsin varied professional career as well as her some of her personal struggles that led her to design and develop Raw Talks academy, a program developed to inspire, impact, and enable her clients to create real impact on their careers and lives
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I sat down with speaker facilitator and host of Women in Business Awards, as well as the founder and CEO of Raw Talks Academy, Tamsin Napier-Munn, among key points addressed where Tamsin's varied professional career, as well as some of her personal struggles that led to her to design and develop Raw Talks Academy, a program developed to inspire impact and enable her clients to create real impact on their careers and lives. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Tamsin Napier-Munn.
[00:00:35] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status for industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:33] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. And today I am elated to be sitting down with Tamsin Napier-Munn. Tamsin is a speaker, a facilitator and host of Women in Business Awards. She is also the founder and CEO of Rock Talks Academy. You can find out more about these issues and done some of the stuff we impact today at Raw Talks Academy dot com. Welcome, Tamsin.
[00:01:56] All right. Great to see you. I'm very excited. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:59] Absolutely. I'm excited to klotho everything regarding your business endeavors today. And for those of you that are new to this podcast. I'll give you a brief roadmap of where our line of inquiry will be headed towards in our 30 to 45 minutes today. And I will also read a bio on Tamsin before I start peppering her with questions. So the roadmap for today's podcast will first look at Tamsin's academic and professional background in history, leading her to the Rock Talks Academy and her work within that, as well as hosting of the Women in Business Awards. Some of those efforts and we will look towards unpacking those efforts in general, the logistics of when each was founded, the work that each is doing, all of that. And then we will turn our efforts towards goals that Tamsin has for all of those projects, namely the Raw Talks Academy over the next one to three years and will wrap everything up with the advice that she has for those of you who are looking to get involved or perhaps emulate some of her success. So as promised, prior to getting into my line of inquiry, a quick bio, Tamsin is an enthusiastic, skilled and energetic speaker and facilitator whose business acumen and engaging style ensures that sessions are not only highly relevant but have a lasting positive impact. Tamsin's eternal optimism for people and opportunities have helped drive her determination to successfully navigate her way through. Like many people, far from sight forward upbringing and career path, having a highly having had a highly successful sales and career in B2B fashion publishing and I.T. temps and transitioned into training sales teams in management and led original Dale Carnegie training business as host of the Women in Business Awards and campaign for the last five years for the Business magazine. Tamsin is passionate about tapping into the power in us, pushing through doubts and taking charge of our careers and our lives as a result of her experience and determination to learn to speak up and step it step up. Tamsin has been inspired to reach out to those of us who haven't yet found her voice or voices to find the courage and skills to get seen and get heard. In 2019, Roth Talks Academy was launched pioneering programs for people of influence. Tamsin has designed strategies, steps and processes as a part of a system to empower you to develop real confidence and real influence and have real impact on your career in business. By tapping into your personal power, you will have a life with greater passion, purpose and will truly unlock your potential and make what you say matter. Because what you say matters is a quote from Tamsin Napier-Munn. Man. So Tamsin. I do. I do want to drop straight in to everything that you're doing. However, prior to that, I'm hoping that you can kind of unpack for us your history, your academic background and early professional life that led you to what you're doing now with a long story.
[00:04:54] I'm sure it was a lovely, lovely, long story to tell. So, you know, I really didn't have much of an academic background, so we can swiftly go past that one. But I you know, I wasn't you know, it didn't engage in school. I was autistic. I think I had ADHD then. But I think people really understood it. So I had quite a dysfunctional and very abusive childhood. So my focus was very much on self preservation. And part of that was I wasn't really allowed to speak. So I was very much metaphorically gagged as a child. So I kind of lifted my head for a lot of time. So I went into Six-fold college and before I went to art college, which I dropped out of, I have to say I had other retsina of young girls, you know, really struggled with your own identity and all the rest of it. So it took me years of years to start to, I guess, undo a lot of the self-esteem issues. And that was probably the reason why I kind of dropped out of college. I went to college. I wanted to be a fashion designer. And so that was the path to go. So unfortunately, I didn't finish it. I don't think my parents were too impressed. Hey, that's that's my academic background.
[00:06:20] Yeah, well, listen, that's interesting because I frequently find in people that I speak to, particularly women or female identified or non binary individual, that doesn't necessarily denote a very prolific. And like a widely cast net as far as the professional life is concerned, you know, inquiry during that time period happens at any stage, regardless of the institution one finds themselves in. So how did you start your professional life?
[00:06:47] Well, interesting. You know, I think it teaches you. I mean, when you go through stuff, it teaches you resilience, determination. And I know although I fell out of college. I still wanted to be a fashion designer, I kind of went up it's sort of one of those romantic stories or not of running up to London and.
[00:07:10] Finding my fame and fortune, but unfortunately found it probably in the wrong places and found myself with the wrong with the wrong people. Just one morning, early morning when I was coming back from one of those all nighters, I was passing the rag trade in London and I happened to peer into the window of this fashion house. And this chap came out and we got chatting and offered me a job. At that point, it was simply a go for job. I was I was hanging clothes and go for a go for that to go for this and any thirty five pounds a week. It was. Wow. Yeah. Not a lot, but I was willing to learn. And I then went to work for Philip Green, the infamous Philip Green one stop shop. And that was an experience I think baptism by fire with that gentleman. And he you know, I'm no good to jumping into a defining moments in our lives. But, you know, that kick started my career in sales because although I wanted to be a fashion designer, I ended up talking to clients, selling clothes from the racks and to the wholesalers to top shop. I felt I had a knack of of influencing and how to understand people relate and connect. So I remember Philip Green wants to turn round to me and said, Tamsin, if you had brains that you'd be dangerous. I remember thinking, I don't think that was a compliment. But it gave me a real drive to start to say, okay, that I'll show you moments. And I from that moment, all my career started to kind of go forward, but I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to make money. The reason being is I want to be financially independent. I think a lot of women that I have met who perhaps happen to have a secure background have been driven to feel that financial security and independence that they haven't had. So that was my drive. More than anything else. So I went into sales more and more in the fashion industry in the 80s. So that was the boom time. The fashion business went into footwear business industry. So you can either very what they call a squiggly career. I mean, I did have no plan, no idea what I was doing. And so I went into the fashion footwear business with my cousin. And I became sales manager at the age of 21. And I was driving right round the country selling off samples. I mean, you talk about hard work and just to the grindstone. I mean, I, I was really working hard. I made some good money. Then I flipped into the publishing industry. I mean, you can get more books. Well, apart from, you know, photographs and fashion of fashion, I went into publishing. I was head hunted, so to speak, for you to start a contract publishing arm. And I ended up selling advertising space. The Haab no sales environment with guys. About 90 percent of them were guys sitting in a room smoking. In those days. I'm off to the pub at lunchtime and I'd go off with the media. I think, you know, then just a kind of short circuit. A lot of this. I bumped around in space, rode the crest of the wave of each wave of whether it was fashion, because then in the 80s we had the we had the crash. Now we had a publishing was on the up. And there was all sorts of wonderful things. I went to sporting events. Hospitality was just fun. And then I went into I.T.. So, you know, when the dot com boom started and I actually when doffs which was around, I was I was one of the first people in the software training industry working for a franchise in London from Atlanta, Georgia.
[00:11:18] So I headed that up for the sales team in London. And then the U.K. found I was, you know, again, honing my skills as a salesperson. I ended up training some of the people in sales around me. And again, it was the dot com boom time. Patricia. It was, you know, the time when you couldn't not make money. I had no idea about technology. I still don't. If I'm honest. And but I just knew how to connect with people. So that was that was that. So where are we? So the dot com boom and bust and then I previously taken a Dale Carnegie course when I was 21. And it had just just changed my whole view on me as well. So this is where I started believing in myself. Somebody else believed in me more than I did. And I know what is the deal.
[00:12:23] Dale Carnegie course forever.
[00:12:25] Dale Carnegie, of course, is Merican. He wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People back in 1936. I think it was and it's still be one of the most prolific early read books. And so Ballard now do. And what it did is it gave me tools and the confidence because it's all around public speaking. And that's, you know, when you talk about where did my when rule talks perhaps start? It started way back. This is the perfect storm. We kind of came to fruition because of a number of events coming together.
[00:13:02] But it started in my ability to start to speak up to find my voice, which is what I didn't have for many years since I was a child. To realize that actually I could influence and I could speak and I could have the courage to put myself out there. And so it boosted my confidence. So at the same time of when I've joined the technology company, the trading company, my my career just flew. I was having a lot of fun. My confidence was there. But I think, you know. When things fell to on rocky foundations. You know, the cracks in the mortar of the building can start to show you. If you don't dig those root, there's foundations out to rebuild.
[00:14:00] And that's that's simply what happens after a while. I was working really hard just to make money. I then decided I wanted to go into the training industry full time. So I went to work for Dale Carnegie. I opened the office in Windsor in the UK, and I then started to run seminars, which is then when I really found that I loved connecting with people and speaking up and speaking from the halls. And coaching people. And then you want me to go see Joy? Yeah, this is good.
[00:14:37] I mean, it does it does lead way into kind of what you did and how you were doing. How long did you carry that position?
[00:14:45] For a few years, this bit sort of vague about a few years, but I have been connected. Patricia with Dale Carnegie since I say 1988. So you could probably guess my age now.
[00:14:58] 1988 to still I'm partnering with them with Robert talks as well. Because what they did is was fundamentally changed. Was the change was permanent. So a number of the things that I'm working with now. Best practice is based on that. Yeah.
[00:15:15] So by unpacking of that, I want to skip over to because I kind of want to end with Unpacking Rocks Talks Academy, but I really want to get into your hosting of the Women in Business Awards. So really quickly for everyone listening. What is it. And how long you served as the host and how and why were you selected to host those awards?
[00:15:36] Okay, I'll start with a selection how that came about, because I just very quickly. I had my son. Things were going well. I was coaching one to one self-employed. And I have been since then. And then I got married. I did everything round also about face. My mother would call it, you know, I did things the wrong way around. Got married off I. Yeah. And then not long. You know, it was any of a short lived marriage. Got divorced. That was very painful. When I said the cracks started to show, that's when they started to show I self my anxiety.
[00:16:12] I was going through menopause and I pretty soon realized I was having a nervous breakdown, which I did, which was, you know, looking at a drawer full of pills that I didn't want to take. What was it? Another defining moment? I had to make a decision to do something. So having met the owner of the business magazines some years before. I got out one day, literally out of my chair, feeling absolutely paralyzed, picked up my phone, and I phoned him because I had a son who I had to look after. No one was paying for him but me and my finances were going backwards. And I was stuck and really wasn't sure what I was going to do about it. So something just propelled me into action. I just got up. I phoned David Murray and I said that to David. I think I've got some ideas for you, how you could expand your business ideas with your awards and your events because of my facilitation. And could I have some time with you to show you what I think that we can do together?
[00:17:28] And.
[00:17:31] He agreed and. He gave me an opportunity that not there wasn't an opportunity, that it wasn't a joke. I just created something. I created a need. And so that's one of the things that I think women, you know, we as women absolutely need to be doing. Moral is creating a need seeking. Finding and filling it rather than waiting until we're asked. Until we're ready. Until something comes up. So I. I sold myself and sold the idea. He then gave me three campaigns to run part time. So I was part time. He was playing me. I'm one of them was the Women in Business Awards now, which I have never, ever been interested in these women's groups, women's stuff. I think probably because I've never seen or felt that I've had any difficulty with in a man's world. Perhaps I used to, dare I say, my sexuality, my my you know, my charm. To my advantage. Rightly or wrongly, it worked for me and most of my clients, my customers were men. And so, you know, I this was alien to me and it was like ladies who lunch was not my thing. So I was kind of doing it because I liked the idea of of speaking, being in an audience and raising my profile. And I knew that the only way to raise my profile and start to get noticed.
[00:19:04] What I do is to step forward to grab this opportunity with both arms, which I did. So I started hosting the first one, which was then there was a second year and ever done it. And we had lots of sponsors. It was 2015 and was first time being on stage like that, you know, in front of two 300 people.
[00:19:34] And it was quite daunting. But I, I really broke a fear of standing in front of people. And that's a lot of conversation. Maybe some time, you know, about standing in front of an audience was one of the biggest fears that I ever had. Like a lot of people, I was humiliated as a child in front of my father, in front of groups of his friends. So I had this blog and I was determined to overcome it. So this was a real big one for me. So over the last five, five 1/2 years, I've been hosting and growing the campaign. So it's not just the awards, it's the whole writing, the newsletters, putting everything on the Web site, interviewing some really successful, amazing women. And I soon realized this is why it's come to this now, is I really realized how much women we as women tend to, I say, tend to not everybody hold ourselves back.
[00:20:35] Yeah. So that got me into the women and Business Awards and the hosting. So I started to build my profile, make amazing connections, interview lots of amazing women and start to kind of build a picture, not just from my own experiences of what it stands for, what we will talk stands for, which how I can come on to the reason for it. The drive for it.
[00:21:00] But, you know, I started realizing the DNA that could be captured with women who are successful to each of those.
[00:21:09] I think it's remarkable, too, that you came at it from this like, you know, you didn't feel incredibly blighted with your career, you know, based with the gender parity and disparity issues. Yeah. There's so many people talk about, I think, unique. And it's a brave platform to have to say I didn't really feel maybe I was using things to my advantage, but it worked for me. So I am curious now. Can we kind of I'd like you to unpack Raw Talks Academy. It was founded recently in 2019 with your love infancy endeavors are so fun, but it sounds like it was born out of like axiomatic principles that you were doing prior to that with the business magazine awards and things like that. So can you kind of like walk us through how it was developed? You also do it in partnership with and with the business magazine owner, or was this a separate thing where he's been very supportive of it and it's sort of run alongside?
[00:22:07] It is my own venture. And so, you know, I think what it comes at the core of it is about finding your voice. It is about courage. And it is about three things I did. I so I created a system, Latricia, that I identified as sort of I unpacked everything that I had done in my life. So this is, you know, wasn't an overnight success and still isn't. But it's it's something that I still look at. What have I achieved and how have I done it? How have I overcome things? And. To to then identify those processes and the mindset, the techniques that I use. And at the core of it is those two things, finding your voice and having the courage to act. I think that a lot of women, as I say, tend to we hold ourselves back, waiting to be ready, waiting until we're sure and waiting until we feel like it's waiting to be asked. Waiting until the all the lights turn green. We hesitate. We tend to think over and analyze underestimates our values. So there's so many statistics out there. And I started to read up about how women have held themselves back because they only go for something unless they're 80 percent ready or feel that they are ready. You know, someone a friend of mine said to me, a male friend, he said, you know what? Men have more of a subject button than women. You know, they have a kind of the more willing to kind of go for something. Yeah. Yeah. Rule talks is stands for real, authentic women. And what I can see in a lot of women, including myself, which is my journey as much as anybody's. Is to stop wearing masks, to start to rob and be fine when everyone says, how are you? You say, I'm fine. And we all know what that means. It's fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional. Or someone else has said is feelings inside not expressed. A lot of women have a voice, so they want to say something. They have ideas, but they hesitate waiting to think that I might be taken seriously. Overlooked for promotion, and this about time we stepped up, spoke up and identified these three areas, if you like. I believe everybody needs to master if they want to get ahead. But in particular, women know this. This is a game changer. I'm not one is to inspire the ability to inspire others. The ability to influence others. And the ability to impact change. So will the skills and the processes of the system are geared to support women in doing those three things?
[00:25:09] I got a lot of inspiration from at the core of this is I identified one thing that enabled me and I say enabled me. I empowered myself because this is one of the things that I know that I love. I come back to this, but. I accept the awards evening once, and this guy said to me. Young guy, he said, you know what, women have got to stop pointing the finger at everybody else, I'm saying they've got to change. You know, they they've got to and I. And I just looked at him knowing I was hosting a in business, he knew that, so hence the he brought it up. I looked at him and I said. Really? And you said women really got to be the change. They've got to be that that influence rather than waiting for other people to change. And I thought he's absolutely right. How? I have never it remind me of my career. I've never waited for somebody else to change. But I had to be that influence, that change in me. So I. I truly believe that they talk about empowering women. This is the this is the subtitle to everything. Women Empowerment and how companies are empowering women. And they don't. How can they? They can allow them to do to empower themselves. Only women can take charge to give themselves the authority to change. So my system is ultimately the ultimate self empowerment, personal power empowerment system because it's women taking charge for themselves and in a way not wasting time until they give them permission to. And that, to me, is how we can make change happen on a large scale. So the system, the academy is is about teaching women the skills, the courage, and ultimately to help them to find that voice and use it. So the core of this is this is a is a something I call it the power of three activation for me that was inspired. I have to say by Mel Robbins, her five second rule, however, comma. I realized that with a different process to this, and actually five seconds takes me three seconds to talk myself out of something. And if you can actually get out of your head into action and you can get out of your head and without overthinking in a way that is quick, that engages. Exactly. But you're locked in mental jail. For me, it was locked down for a lot of people as being mentally locked down. You know, I put myself in solitary confinement in my head for a long time. And what we have to do is to to break out of. Mental lockdown. And to get into action rather than carping, paralyzed by fear and anxiety. Yeah. And as I was so so the power of reactivation of formula. I teach the core of everything. So it is a formula, a three step process of becoming present and really being aware of your instincts. Being aware of the instincts to act. So whether you have an idea, then you have to put your hand up in the meeting. And you have that instinct to do that rather than what a lot of people do, is to kind of work for the break. Some say, should I put my hand up? Should I say something at the moment? Gone. Rather than not has to to follow your instincts and to count backwards three to one and physically move through the physical movements, changes your mindset as far as mental expounds is engaging your prefrontal cortex so that you can actually make those physical changes in that moment. This few seconds, an act, as you know, that's probably one of the drivers that most people will say from the testimonials you might see is somebody got rid of the excuses is to act on instinct, to honor your instincts with deliberate action so that if you like, the power of three, which is at the core of everything, and I think that is for me, the. The thing that I look back at, yeah, that's what's caused changes in my life. Yeah, I'm curious about.
[00:29:55] So I had the opportunity to read some pieces, some comments and testimonials from your previous clients. And it sounds like a continuous theme is that they all feel like you have offered them at, you know, a roadmap to self empowerment and also that you yourself lead by example that you're this very powerful speaker and things of that nature. And it caused me to kind of consider your client profile even further. And I'm curious to go noticed any trends even prior to officially launching, you know, Raud Talks Academy. Do you find that you have like a very niche or specific profile of individual that you work with? Or does it span all industry and genre? Like, how does that work for you? Have you.
[00:30:43] Good question. Yeah, that's a good question. Tricia B.. Profile of. My clients is women. I mean, that is the main profile of my clients. I say from I identify this, everyone suffers from the same things to a smaller or greater degree.
[00:31:12] And it's not just women who are all returning to work, not your career break, you lack confidence. It is potentially women who are starting out in their career as graduates. Women tend to still have those those fears and those doubts. I'm not sure where that's come from, whether that's a biological or that's your nature. You know, there's a lot to be said for looking into all of that. There's also aspiration. I'd say aspirational women are my my target audience. Anyone who is looking to influence, looking to find their voice, wanting to get ahead and is willing to commit to doing something and confronting situations. And part of this course in the program, the 12 week program that I'm now I'm now launching next month is a pilot when I piloted last year and very powerful program because it starts off with the first eye, which is inspiration. Now everybody wants to eat to inspire others around them. And I took my inspiration rather than motivation, because inspiration is the rocket fuel for this thing, for any endeavor. And if women want to to raise their profile, they want to be seen to be more influential. They first need to look at themselves and be inspirational. And so that's one of the things that women tend that I found tend to do, is they downplay their assets than strengths. So what I do is confront them with. Looking at what they've got going for them, you know, that's reminding them, rediscovering that that part of them, that they. They realize this is a strength. Take them through a five step process of self discovery and that when they come out of that and it's experiential, it's not theoretical process. So my coaching just to kind of the way it works and why it's so transformational is that I use best practice coaching in the sense of I use specific ways of disrupting and challenging their thinking. And then I do a little coaching in the Vegan.
[00:33:36] So from my Dale Carnegie days, it's all about stand and deliver. Well, maybe now as I sit and deliver an online book, stand and deliver, it is about building confidence through public speaking. So I coach them in the moment so they can actually feel the transformation and I challenge them to be better. Be bold. Be brave. And so take them out of their comfort zone is where the magic happens, I say, and you're right, it's it's it's something that I haven't I haven't by any means got to where I want to be. But also I'm also very conscious. This is my journey to I struggle and I'm very honest about it. I'm very transparent. Like you said, you are transparent, you know, very honest. This is about being authentic, but being vulnerable and being brave. To be doing that, the only way that you can inspire and connect with other people is by being those things. So that's what the program teaches. You know, this is our struggle, just as everybody else does still that and like you being very akin and, you know, human.
[00:34:49] Much like your clients, I'm wondering how is your process sounds? Very much so. Like it's about self identity awareness. And then these lily pad action item approaches as to how to change through the eyes. They're inspiring and and impacting and all of those things. But I'm wondering to that. And it sounds like, you know, it's it's kind of micro goal making to kind of get your behavior to change. And with you yourself, as you likened yourself to your clients just now. Do you find yourself transforming as the time goes on that you continue to kind of coach people in this? Do you find your theory's kind of retaining or accelerating in their clarity? And if so, how is that shaping your future goals with what you're going to do with the academy?
[00:35:39] So what I think you are what you say, because it was a little bit. I got a noise in the background. Is that because this is evolving? Is that is that really. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Setting is so I'm young. If the if if you have evolved as an adviser to your clients and if so, has that changed the future of where you're headed.
[00:36:04] I think, you know, well, I'm very excited about the fact that I don't have to be the person standing up that I am, Patricia. This is probably you know, you've hit the nail on the head. I see. And I talk about other women. They say they will go to talks. They'll listen to some very well known. Whether it's Michelle Obama, whether it's for Winfrey, or they'll have some iconic equal over the U.K. businesswoman because listen to get inspired. But inspiration tends to disappear, tends to sort of weaken as they leave the auditorium or they leave. That's because what they're saying to themselves is I could never be like that. So what I want from this academy is about storytelling, that hearing other women's stories in a way that is about then sharing it with passion and practice to inspire other women, saying I'm not nothing special. This is my story. And but this is where I've come from. So. For me, it's about the ordinary, I say ordinary, exceptionally ordinary woman.
[00:37:20] Who has an extraordinary capacity to share the.
[00:37:29] The golden nuggets of wisdom that are being hidden because they haven't had the courage of confidence to speak up. So this is about. So they learn to tell students about storytelling. So every session that they work through is they tell a story. They learn how to frame it and learn how to deliberate with passion and purpose. And finding their purpose as part of this. Is when you've got that, you've got inspiration. You become unstoppable. So that's the final icing on the cake. The Road Teams Academy will be something I'm launching next year. Hopefully it'll be something that if we can all go back on stage. Quite an amazing national program. And it's about sharing, watching people's journey from. From being sort of perhaps less confident person to being an inspirational speaker and seeing that person transformed because that's what inspires people, not maybe the Michelle Mon's or the current Bradys we have over here. Yeah. Been there. Done it. It's seeing someone actually grow. So I hope that people will see me evolve. You know, because, yeah, that's a pressure on myself to do that. I have to. I got to do what I'm asking other people to do. Absolute lockdown. That's exactly what happens, because I'm natural's for my notable line, libeled line. I'm totally out of my comfort zone. This is not where I want to be. Yeah. So there's another test.
[00:39:19] Absolutely. And I think a lot of people who can and are able to and fortunate enough to receive it that way and do it are growing. You know, and I think that's one of the offshoots that I very timidly try and proffer up, you know, as as nothing good ever came from pandemic. But something good frequently comes from the human struggle. You know, and and so within that, I think that we can kind of openly talk about those things. And it sounds like you've endeavored with that as well. Well, Tamsin, we're running out of time and we're at my favorite parts. For everyone who listens to my podcast regularly knows that I am unabashedly honest about the idea that this final question of mine, I don't change. And. And I've asked it of a million people. So I will ask you now today. I'm curious if you had a young woman or female identified or non binary individual approached you in a park or a garden tomorrow at a safe social distance and say, Oh, Tamsin, I'm so glad I found you. So check it out. I've had this career that has been this beautifully winding road throughout all of these different industries. I started off, you know, really wanting to be in fashion and was to some degree. And then I climbed through all of these different endeavors. I learned through marketing, I was very turned on to this course that I took and then worked for. I did it all of these different things. And now I'm getting ready to kind of launch my own enterprise and utilize all of the skills and the pieces of knowledge and and expertize and put it all together with the top three pieces of advice you would give that individual knowing what you know now.
[00:40:54] OK. Since when did you say top three? Yes. OK. So I would I would absolutely tell her to find someone who is going to not take any excuses but is willing to push her because even eagles need to push mount. The second the second thing is to.
[00:41:21] To speak up.
[00:41:24] To absolutely speak up and find the courage to do so. I would say using this, I would I would chair that three step process with her of the formula, because in the moment of making a decision to step outside of your comfort zone, you have to have courage. And it's about the little things. So is having finding the courage to speak up. And I would say that thing would be. And there are lots of things I would say. It's about. I mean, I could squeeze a fourth one and be sure to yourself. To add to find your purpose. Two, to pursue finding a purpose. And when you do sue it all your might. Yes. Don't wait until you're my age, huh?
[00:42:20] I think you're killing it. So. And I love age. I've decided I'm very proud. I'm forty three. I think that a lot of my audience probably even knows my birthday by now because I don't think that you can accomplish what I've accomplished without being around 43. So to pretend to be happy young would be to be unaccomplished. And I would trade up any day. So I have your top three as find someone who won't accept excuses and push you. No. To speak up and find the courage to do so. And number three, be good to yourself and find your true purpose.
[00:42:56] Yes, I love those.
[00:42:57] I know you have a name for because I know what I'm going to be tapping into your zone of genius as to all of that. And so I thought it might be pressing you a bit hard. And I think it was beautifully done. I love those. And I want to say, Tamsin, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I know you're busy. Everyone is at once. Thank you. At home and available, but also very busy. And I really appreciate you taking the time, giving us your honest rhetoric.
[00:43:20] Appreciate you having me on. I've really enjoyed the time with you. Thank you, Patricia.
[00:43:25] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Tamsin Napier-Munn. You can find out more on raw talks, Academy dot com. And thank you for giving me your time today.
[00:43:36] And until we speak again next time. Remember to stay safe and always bet on yourself. Slainte.
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Today I sit down with Jessika Noda. Jessika is the Founder of Jiyubox, a clean beauty subscription box and online shop featuring Indie beauty brands. Jiyubox came to fruition in search of breaking free from the nine to five and following her life's goals and passions. Jessika is also the Founder of Jiyu Management which helps passionate entrepreneurs and side hustlers build meaningful communities. She is passionate about helping her peers and community to become their best self and strive for success.
Key points addressed were
- Jessika’s varied occupational story that led to her launch of the clean beauty subscription box that is Jiyu box
- We also discussed how she designed the process and curates the content of the box as well as how she defines key terms such as Indie Beauty, Cruelty Free, and Clean for the Jiyu box’s products
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with founder of Jiyubox Box, Jessika Noda, key points addressed where Jessika has varied occupational story that led her to launch of the Clean Beauty subscription box that is Jiyubox box. We also discussed how she designed the process and curates the content of the box, as well as how she defines key terms such as indie beauty, cruelty free and clean for the Jiyubox boxes products. Stay tuned for my fascinating talk with Jessika Noda.
[00:00:32] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts, regardless of age, status or industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:30] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I'm elated to be sitting down with Jessika Noda. She is the founder of Jiyubox Box, a clean beauty subscription box and online shop. You can find out more about her products and her company as well. The other endeavors that we talked about today on w w w dot j. I y you box dot com g. You box dot com. Welcome, Jessika.
[00:01:54] Thank you for having me, Patricia. Excited to be here.
[00:01:57] Absolutely. I'm excited to unpack everything. We talk a little bit off-line before we started recording and I can't wait to kind of unearth what do you box does and all of that. We've had a lot of audience members write in about people who have kind of the accountability sustainability efforts that you look towards for everyone who is new to the podcast. I will give you a quick roadmap of where our line of inquiry will head today. And then I'll read a quick file on Jessika. Before I start asking her my questions. So the road map for today's podcast will follow the same trajectory as all of those in this series. We look at four main constituents. One of them is the first one. Her academic background and early professional life leading up to the founding of Jiyubox box. And then we'll look at unpacking. Do you box? We'll get into the logistics of when it was founded, how funding all of those things. And then we'll look towards the ethos and the philosophy of the company. Then we'll turn to unpacking and looking at goals that Jessika has for you box for the next one to three years. That's a conversation that's changed for a lot of people given the recent Cauvin 19 pandemic. We'll wrap the entire podcast up with advice that just came. We have for those of you who are looking to get involved with her efforts or perhaps emulate some of her career success. So, as promised, a quick bio on Jessika. Before I start asking her questions, Jessika is the founder of Jiyubox Box, a clean beauty subscription box, an online shop featuring indie beauty brands. Jiyubox Box came to fruition in search of breaking free from the nine to five grind for Jessika. Jessika is also the founder of Jehu Management, which helps passionate entrepreneurs and site hustlers build meaningful communities. She is passionate about helping her peers and community to become their best self and strive for success. So, Jessika, I was telling you prior to jumping on this call that I got on your Web site, and I do love it and I always like to tell people on air so people can check it out. I'm kind of a connoisseur or an appreciator of good Web sites. I hit I like close to two million a week. And when I come across one, that's really well done and elegant. I like to state that. So kudos to that. And I think that that kind of welcomes your your potential customer and client in so beautifully. But prior to kind of unpacking the Jiyubox box and and all of that, I want you to, if you would, describe, like your academic background, early professional life leading you to this point.
[00:04:15] Yeah, so when I mean, starting from the beginning, I first wanted to be a physiotherapist, sport science. Grew up playing sports, was in physio a lot. And it's like, OK, I want to help people. This is great. I'm going to do this. And I ended up failing Cam one hundred and. Well. It's not for me anymore. I hated science. And so then I kind of took a blind turn and went to an info session and it was on marketing. And at the time it was tourism marketing. It's like, well, I like to travel. So I was going to try it. And, you know, I was 18 or 19. So I did that. I ended up graduating with just a general business and marketing degree. And I went into my first job as a travel agent, and that was great. But what I found was that the travel industry is very hesitant and resistant to change. So I was working and booking people on their flights and their vacations on a system that was built in the nineteen eighties. So I was like hard coding in these different types of flight and there's no there isn't. You could get through your entire day without using mouse. It was all it was like those black screens with like green text on it. It was awful. So and everyone in that industry is kind of they're in their 50s and they're just doing it forever. So then one change. And what happened after bad is I kind of got tired of being in an industry that was resistant to change. So I ended up going into tech and I went into tech sales. At first I was working in a company that I was working with a lot of Winsor's with your tuba. So that was quite interesting. And then I moved into a more, I guess I would say, hardcore software sales position working, doing audit management software. And to be honest, I still couldn't really tell you what auditing is and how it works. So that's I was I was quite miserable at that job. I was working East Coast time and I work I live in the West Coast, so it was just not working out for me. And I kind of hit my my breaking point as like, well, you know, do I fit this job and make really good money in sales and be miserable or do I just try something? I've kind of got I'm still young. I've got time on my hands. Why not just try this? And so I ended up leaving the nine to five job and starting new management, which at the time was more about marketing. But I quickly realized that especially in Vancouver, and I'm sure and basically in all of North America, it's a quite a saturated market. And unless you're very passionate about it or an expert at it, you're going to have a really hard time finding clients and building up that business. So after about, I would say, six months of that, I was again miserable and I decided, OK, do I go back to a nine to five job and be miserable and make money? Or do I stick this out and really give it a good shot of being an entrepreneur and kind of running my own life? And I kind of decided as like, OK, well, what what do I really care about? What am I really passionate about? And it came back to me was skin care and beauty and makeup. And, you know, I that's when I was in high school. I was always watching these YouTube videos. And at that time there was never really a career folks giving into the beauty industry. You really only do it by making your own products. So I at that time, it wasn't feasible. But now in this day and age, there's so many different options. And so I think I was actually watching a YouTube video of someone unboxing during one of those PR hauls or something like that. And it's like I could do that and I could do that better. So that's kind of the spark of how you got started.
[00:08:14] That's amazing. So let's get into unpacking it. How was. I love that you've kind of bounced around and recovered and people of frequently view, you know, peppering of a bunch of different industries is a problem or lack of commitment. And I think it requires bravery. And it also offers this incredible seasoning to anybody who's experienced different industries. And the conversation with itself is key with most founders and to have a very fluid dialog with one's internal processes. But also it's you have peper different industries is always it's never been beneficial to anyone from an artist to, you know, a geophysicist. So I think it's fantastic that you did. And that's part of your story. I want to unpack. Do you box now? So really quickly, the logistics, when was it founded? Did you have co-founders? Did you take funding? Was it bootstrapped?
[00:09:07] So I founded in June of twenty nineteen. So we're actually just over a year old now. I am the sole founder. However, my boyfriend is a very big influence on the way the branding has gone.
[00:09:20] So we talk about that a lot. He's almost like an unofficial co-founder. And it's then bootstraps. No, no funding. No, no extra family and friends help.
[00:09:32] Amazing. Did you find any of it with your previous endeavors, or was it all just like as you went along?
[00:09:40] It's kind of I mean, I had a bit of a savings fund, but I do a little bit of, you know, consulting work on the side, which you managements. There were any all of my income is really going towards funding junior boxes. That's kind of the end goal is to just be working on your box.
[00:09:54] Did you did you launch it moonlighting with a different career or our job or did you quit what you were doing and sync all of your efforts solely into it in twenty nineteen?
[00:10:06] At the time, it was all of my efforts. And I quickly realized that I was running out of money. So I took on a part time remote job and I do still have that. So that's kind of also funding it. And they think, you know, from the outside, it looks very glamorous and it looks like a very well put together company. But in the background, it's me running around doing three different jobs, trying to just make ends meet.
[00:10:31] Yeah, absolutely. As one does in the infancy of any startup, I'm wondering. So Web sites, is it states that the word to you means freedom in Japanese? And D-Box stands for the freedom to explore and enjoy our lives while also living a life free from toxins, fillers and animal cruelty. And I feel like that and embodies, you know, a lot of the philosophy and ethos of your brand. Can you kind of unpack? So for people listening or watching this on the Vodcast, when someone lands your site, what are you hoping that they first notice? And what he what is like that, the site intending to do for your customer and then also kind of unpack the box for us, literally. Like what? Intel's.
[00:11:17] Yeah. So when you first get to the site, I, I kind of picture the site as it looks. High end, but it is still affordable and I fiddle with saying this, but it is quite the affordable luxury.
[00:11:32] So usually clean duty is more on the high end side. You've got your you know, there are brands that have cleansers for one hundred dollars, which they're great. But, you know, that's not always in everyone's budget. So the idea is to make it fuel and look like your your purchasing and engaging with something that's lovely, but something that's still attainable for everyone.
[00:11:53] And the idea behind that is just, you know, growing up, our parents don't really know any better. They were buying all the all the stuff with that had a lot of toxins in it. And I think today's in today's day and age, everyone is much more educated on what they're putting into and onto their bodies. So I want to kind of create a more of an educational platform for people.
[00:12:14] So we do a blog post every week on different topics within Clean Beauty. We interview the brands that we have in the box. So we want to make it eventually grow into not just being an e-commerce platform, but also a place for education to learn more about the ingredients and the brands that you're purchasing from. And in terms of unpacking the box, we we're a seasonal subscription. And the reason why I did that was today everyone is so inundated with so much stuff. And I am quite a minimalist.
[00:12:52] I don't use a lot of products. Of course, I'm testing a lot of things out all the time. But in my regular routine, it's really not that long. And to be honest, I'm a little bit lazy. I don't like to do so. All of these steps every night, every morning. So I did it as a seasonal thing. And they are full size so that in that three months, do you have time to really try everything rather than sometimes when you get sample size things? It's nice. You can't actually tell if it works because sometimes the samples just don't last long enough. So I did it every season so you can really fully try everything out.
[00:13:27] And then by the time the next season comes around, you're ready for something new. And we did it, by the way, I curate the box is by season. So our skin changes every season in the wintertime, especially here in Vancouver. It's so dry and cold, whereas in the summertime it is pretty hot and humid. So your skin's really looking for different things throughout the year. So that's kind of what I based the contents of the box around. And so when I'm looking to source different products for the box, first of all, I'm looking for I'm thinking I think about what products people and skin is looking for during that season. And then I go out and find brands that have that product that fit our criteria.
[00:14:12] So is it a rotating brand or do you use one until you find one that's better. How are you curating what makes it into the box?
[00:14:21] So I obviously I have a whole Rolodex and list of vendors that I would like to work with.
[00:14:27] But like I said, so for example, for summertime, I'm probably not going to put a heavy body creep in there that might be better for wintertime. So once I've decided what's what type of product is going the box, I'll go through my kind of Rolodex of vendors I like to work with and see if they have a product that fits our ingredients, fits our branding as well, and also fits to the price points. And then on top of that, I'm always searching on Instagram and I'm always looking at ads as well that come up for your new brands. And so, of course, I've got a huge saved folder on my Instagram. I've got tons of screenshots of different types of ads that come up. And then on top of that, I have gone to I went to the Indie Duty Expo last year and this year actually in January of twenty nineteen and was able to meet a lot of vendors in person and test out their products. So finding the brands comes from accumulation of a lot of different resources.
[00:15:30] Absolutely. I'm curious. I want to kind of unpack some terms for people listening who don't haven't heard of any of them before.
[00:15:36] Your site uses the following like phrases a great deal. And I'm hoping you can kind of describe what you mean by them personally. So you just mentioned indie beauty and they haven't. But I kind of want to unpack what that means for you, what indie beauty is and what you what you personally feel by you talk about being clean and cruelty free. And and so I'm hoping that we can kind of like what do those terms mean to you? Even though sometimes they seem transparent, they mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, particularly when it comes to beauty. So let's start with you. What does that term mean for you?
[00:16:10] So indie do for me are smaller brands who are not necessarily in the big box stores like a Sephora. And one of the reasons why is because I was kind of like, well, why would anyone buy a box if you could just go to Sephora online and grab it? And the other reason is because of being able to support other small businesses. So there's a lot of different terms for indie beauty, but in general, it means that it's a company that's usually bootstrapped. Maybe they got some, you know, loans from the bank, but they don't have investor funding and it's usually run, founded and owned by the original owner. So they don't have, like, a huge board of people running it. It's not like a L'Oreal where you've got this shoot like it's a very big glummer. They're usually local businesses who might my your next door neighbor who had started making soaps in her house and it started to grow her company. So being able to have that community aspect and, you know, some of the indie beauty brands, they are large. They they've been around for three, five, seven, 10 years, but they're still considered indie because they are still run and owned by the original founder.
[00:17:28] Right. Yeah. Okay. Now, let's get into what do you mean by clean when you talk about clean products? What how is that term like? What makes it into that.
[00:17:38] Yeah. So clean beauty is it's such a a blanket term. And when I actually first launched the company, I started off by marketing that we were all natural. And I did that because what happens in the industry is clean is a very flexible marketing word that a lot of companies use. And so I had originally gone with all national because there's a little bit more specific, because if you look up clean beauty, there's this thing called greenwashing, where when you say clean beauty or green beauty, you people automatically think, oh, it's fine, it's great for you. This is there's you. So in terms of clean beauty, what that means is not just necessarily having no, you know, sulfates or P G's or diametrical. It's not like it's not just removing the kind of the big bad ones, but it's also making sure that the ingredients are as close to their original format as possible. So, for example, something like citric acid. Usually it's an acid. So you usually find that in Citris like a lemon or an orange. And by and that is considered all natural. But what happens is it would take a ton of lemons to make just a little bit of citric acid to put into a skin care products. So that is something that we allow to be made in a in a lab or in a manufacturer because it's just not feasible to harvest that many lemons to make into the product that you need. So that's kind of what we mean by clean beauty, is keeping it as close to the natural source as possible and something that you could find. From the earth.
[00:19:21] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:19:23] I'm wondering when you go into it, so on your website, when you go into the starter box and you kind of look at things, you talk about cruelty free, and that's another word that I feel like can be flexible with marketing, you know? And so I'm wondering, is it PETA certified that's in the States. I know you're in Canada. But what what are the criteria you use to have it be cruelty free? Because there are people that outsource, as you've kind of mentioned here, with the with the clean aspect, you can outsource a certain part of the process to the cruelty or animal testing, which I think a lot of people subscribe to. Cruelty free, which is not to cruelty free, can be animal testing of humane animal testing. So how do you look at all those and what are your criteria for calling it cruelty free?
[00:20:08] Yeah, surfer crawl through free means that it's not tested like the products are not tested on animals at all in any of any of the process. And so that means that any of the products that we have in the brand are tested only on humans. And it's interesting, I was reading a few articles a few months back and they've actually come back. Testing products on humans is actually much cheaper than testing it on animals as well. So along the lines of cruelty free, I will mention that most of the products do tend to be Vegan, although we do have products that do have honey in them. So for some people that might not be considered cruelty free, but for Jue box, we consider cruelty free as not testing on animals. But some products may have Honea and they may have got some milk in them. So they're not necessarily Vegan, but they're not tested on animals.
[00:21:05] Okay. And moving forward, I'm wondering, you're so new now. And so I'm sure that it's something that will come up as you kind of go along geo box. But have you considered that as you as you start to think of your customer? Have you considered, you know, a curation aspect for people who are and I mentioned this, a lot of people listening who follow my podcast know that I have a podcast based on Vegan life that started up last year. And it was it was just coincidental. It started actually prior to Kovik. But it's kind of been this huge platform since the Koven 19 pandemic. People have had to return to conversations with themselves and their realities about health.
[00:21:46] And the Vegan diet has kind of cut risen as this flagship, you know, of the way that a lot of people are turning to to resume health and encourage immune responses and things like that.
[00:21:58] I'm wondering, are you going to be able to. Do you foresee in your future with you box like curating to people who have stipulations like Vegan or allergies or things like that, where you can start to substitute things out? Or do you want to keep it just standard?
[00:22:16] For now, it is standard, however, if a customer has allergy or they are, they only use Vegan products. We just ask that they let us know ahead of time. So then if there is a product that is not that may have an ingredient that they're allergic to or is not Vegan and has no honey in it. We'll find a substitute for them.
[00:22:38] Yes. Nice. So I'm wondering, given that we were just kind of discussing and I was rather the covered 19 pandemic, I'm looking forward to like your future goals and things like that.
[00:22:50] This is a conversation that people have had that has changed for everybody that I know of. You have this online enterprise, which was it's kind of a beautiful thing because it should be able to be more sustainable than brick and mortar situations and do moving forward with your goals. Do you plan on staying solely online? Would you ever go into a brick and mortar situation? And also, what are your plans for the next one to three years with D-Box?
[00:23:16] I do plan to stay online. That being said, I do do pop ups. Sometimes I do. We'll go to events. So having maybe a longer term temporary pop up is something in the future. But for the most part, it is. It is online. And that's purely most a lot of it. It's logistics. To be honest, it's a lot to run a brick and mortar store and have people running it. And so during this pandemic, I realized how. Oh, lucky and grateful that I have an online business that I didn't have to worry about staff running the store.
[00:23:52] And, you know, a lot of the beauty companies that I see who do have the brick and mortar stores, they've had to implement a lot of these different types of measures, especially for things like testing out products. How are you going to do that? So I don't foresee us having a permanent brick and mortar store about pop ups are definitely in the future when we can kind of go back to those types of events for the next one to three years. I would really like to actually move our operations to the US. That's kind of on been on my radar for the last year.
[00:24:25] There's just in being in Canada. It's great. I got it. But in terms of shipping things, it's quite a headache. There's just not as many options in terms of just getting the logistics up and running. So it would make more sense to be based in the US. And I joke that's where I'm in in Vancouver. I'm only a two hour drive from the border. That is just two hours to help. It could've been a lot easier.
[00:24:56] So it's necessary that with the really quickly we're ready to returning to that kind of the same aspect when you talk about clean. So where are you guys? Where do you get like the manufacturing process and stuff like that for the boxes and things like that? Are those is that in Canada or is it outsourced? And will that stay the same? You're saying moving it to the US? US. I'm assuming it's happening. It's manufactured in Canada.
[00:25:25] Yeah, our boxes are manufactured in Canada. They're actually back there just to drive away from where I'm at. So they're a local company, which I really love working with it. It's really nice to be able to go in and meet the people who you're working with.
[00:25:40] And when we could, I would anytime I was working with a local vendor here, I would always try and meet them in person and learn more about their stories. Oh, our our boxes are all sourced from from basically Vancouver here.
[00:25:55] That's awesome.
[00:25:56] I know that that attempting part, even with people who are trying to be very conscious, if I environmentally sustainability, accountability with products, they eventually just get kind of seduced, you know, by outsourcing to, you know, other than the place. And it removes that, like, indeed, if you will, you know, mentality to the whole thing. And I think it's you know, a lot of people do it to stay afloat, to stay alive as the last day or even just as to increase profits in the future. But it's very cool and still kind of rare, you know, that you're staying local and things of that nature. So you're planning on switching it up and going to the states for production, but just to make it easier for the shipping.
[00:26:38] Yeah. And there's just you know, there's just a lot more people in the US and especially in the dairy industry. There's a lot a lot more industry in places like California. So that's kind of where we are eyeing. But just to be closer to that, and I find that it is more difficult as well to work with American brands than just shipping things across the border in terms of paying duties and just getting it across customs. And we're finding that most of our customer base is in the US. So, of course, they're not going for our Canadian customers, but it's just the logistics. It would be a lot easier to be based there.
[00:27:19] How is that process going? I haven't spoken to anybody from Canada that's like trying to shift over into the states. I've talked to one person that was shifting back the other way into Canada, dealing with protozoans, things that we're coming from up there.
[00:27:30] But is it difficult for you or is it an easy like as an American citizen? I don't as a United States citizen, I don't know how that process goes when you start to get to international situations. Have you started looking into it? Is it going to be a hard drive or will it be kind of a seamless transaction?
[00:27:49] It's not going to be too difficult. It's actually better for cost saving. Shipping from Canada to the US is extremely expensive. There are some alternative methods to shipping. There's a service that's really great at shipping to the US. But I worry that because I'm in Canada and sometimes the shipping can take a lot longer to the US. And, you know, I know Americans are much more used to getting things a lot quicker. I worry about having too much of a shipping time and that impacting the customer experience. So the whole goal is to make it a customer experience as seamless as possible. We don't want people waiting, you know, two weeks or more to get their packages. And so just being able to do that would be a lot better and help me sleep at night and make sure that these packages of the Red Cross and you wouldn't imagine how many nights I've had about worrying if a package is going to make it through customs. So just having those kind of things set in stone would be a lot easier.
[00:28:53] Absolutely. So you're you're planning on looking at moving operations down to at least having a hub in the United States. Do you have any other future goals in regards to growth or anything? Do you do like the traditional one to three year plan, five year plan, or are you kind of taking it a day at a time right now because it's still in its infancy?
[00:29:12] Yeah. So I have one year plan. I mean, the goal is to, of course, make it to at least five years. I know a lot of hits don't make it that far. So it is true because I'm so small and I've just got a team of two other people.
[00:29:28] It's really easy to pivot, which has worked in our favor, especially during the pandemic. Being a year old when the pandemic started, we were we had enough of a basis to be able to stay afloat during this and also not be large and not be too large that we had to completely let go of our entire staff. So the goal is to continue to grow. And we do want to basically double the scale for us for the next year. But I do see it being a small team. I don't see D-Box being this massive company with hundreds of employees. Ideally, actually, I'd like to keep it as small as possible because working in being in companies that are like startups and seeing how nimble you can be as a small team and being able to pivot when things change. I don't foresee it being like this massive company that. You have to run through all the troops. And, you know, when you have a PR crisis or something that happens, it's so quick to be able to make the decision. Whereas, you know, if you're in a large company, you'd have to run through all these hoops and ask all these people and get everything approved. So growing, doubling our sales, but while keeping the team as nimble as possible.
[00:30:43] Nice. That's. I think you're right about that. A lot of people don't consider that for some reason, there's this largely held belief that the stability comes with this massive size and incredible growth. And I think you're talk and you're right in talking about, you know, being nimble and staying flexible, you know, that being part of, like one of the crucial parts of startups is absolutely true.
[00:31:06] You know, I'm being revived. Both feast and famine, I think, is is much more easily navigated with a smaller team. That a lot. Well, Jessika, we're wrapping up our time together. And I want to now turn towards what my one of my favorite parts of the podcast is for people who have listened to me before. No. And that is I'm curious if you ran into someone from a safe social distance in beautiful Vancouver tomorrow at some park or garden, and they came up and said, oh, I'm so glad I found you. I know I've been told that I should ask you for some advice. Here's the situation. I've peppered a lot of different industries and I've realized and to a lot of different pains and trials that they were not for me. And I'm that if I'm going to go out on my own, I have this great idea for a startup and I'm going to get going tomorrow. What are the top three pieces of advice you would give? Let's say for certain, it's a woman female identified or non binary individual, anyone other than a white man.
[00:32:05] What are the three top pieces of advice you would give that individual? Knowing what you know right now.
[00:32:12] The first one is a little bit cheesy, but I would say that you want to be passionate about what you're doing, because if you're not passionate about what you're doing when you hit those hard times, it's going to be really hard. And what has kept me going through the hard times now is knowing that, you know, I do still really, really care about what I'm doing. And I think a lot of founders kind of you need to use that passion to fuel you because it's all, you know, bunnies and rainbows. When you first start like, oh, is this great? I'm like running my own business. I own my own time. I own my schedule. But when things get tough, when you're, you know, money's tight, you're kind of like, why am I doing this? If you're really not passionate about what you're doing, you really don't care about what you're doing. It's gonna be really tough and can be tempting to go back to that nine to five job and just be kind of complacent with what you're doing. So I'd say one is to be very passionate about what you're doing. And obviously that can evolve. So that goes back to the really commonly word use. Now it's pivot, but making sure that you really care about what you're doing. The second one is, I would say, to make sure that you have a very strong support system around you. I find that as you start to really get into your business, it's harder to relate to your your friends and your peers who do have the time to find jobs. And so they may not always understand why you can't go out for happy hour every Friday or why you're working on Saturday and Sunday and can't go to the beach. So making sure that you've got really strong friendships, who can support you through that and understand why you can't be there all the time? Because you won't. You're just not possible. And every time you go out and spend money on how they're like, oh, man, that was like 50 bucks, I could've used my own company. So I think making sure you've got a really strong network of friends. And then the third thing is I would say to. Grow, expand your network in terms of business and finding other people who are also in the same position as you and maybe a few years along. Because what I found really helpful is because my friends, who are nine to five jobs, they don't necessarily understand the struggles I'm going through. Also, having a network of people who understand what you're going through and you can kind of work through those pains and struggles together. And then having someone, you know, who maybe a couple years ahead of you being able to be there, still, they're not so big that they don't remember what it was like to start, but they've just got a couple more years ahead of you to remember and give you some advice on what worked for them when they were in your in your place.
[00:35:09] Yeah, I like that. That's awesome. All right. So I've got be passionate about what you do.
[00:35:13] Number one, have a strong support system of people who can relate or at least show patience with your current struggles. And then, number three, expand your network, particularly with those who are a little bit further ahead for like a move in aspect, which I completely concur with.
[00:35:31] I think that those are all really strong. And there are a lot of those are about, you know, developing this this community, you know, that kind of it's an ecosystem for startups, I think. And when you realize that and you realize that, you know, there are other things that help it rather than just endeavoring more work towards the startup, but also having social aspects in your other pieces of your life kind of tie into that and relate to it. They don't just help with, I think, staying alive, which is the goal.
[00:36:00] I think it also it really encourages the the joy one receives from the process, you know, and the potential gains in the education that can go along with it, as well as the pain, which I think a lot of people have very well iterated. You know, the pain of starting a startup and sleepless nights and things like that are frequently spoken of, but there can be no rush and things like that. And I think it's exacerbated when you when you do things like include social circles around that type of thing and not fight it, but rather bridge it with, you know, like minded individuals like you're talking about. So that's clever. And I like it a lot. Jessika, thank you so much for giving us your time today. I really appreciate you kind of unpacking, do you box and giving us your story.
[00:36:45] Thank you so much, Patricia. That was awesome talking with you today.
[00:36:48] Awesome. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with Jessika Noda. She's the founder of Jiyubox Box, a clean beauty subscription box and online shop. You can find out more at w w w Jiyubox boxed outcome. That is j i y you box dot com. Thank you for giving me your time today.
[00:37:05] And until we speak again next time. Remember to stay safe and always bet on yourself. Slainte.
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Speaking with Susan Hunt Stevens; Founder & CEO of WeSpire
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Today I am speaking with Susan Hunt Stevens. Susan is the Founder & CEO of WeSpire, an award-winning employee experience technology platform focused on engaging people in purpose-driven initiatives, ranging from sustainability to social impact, holistic wellbeing, and inclusive cultures. She founded WeSpire to use her digital behavior change expertise to help people embrace healthier and more sustainable lifestyles after her son was diagnosed with serious food allergies. She was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year for New England, a Boston Business Journal Woman of Influence, and to the Environmental Leader 100 list. Prior to WeSpire, she spent 9 years at The New York Times Company, most recently as SVP/General Manager for Boston.com, a $60M digital media division.
Key points addressed were
- The core tenants of WeSpire and their goal to help companies actualize integration and processes increasing aspects of company values, positive work culture, sustainability, well being, and social impact under each company’s unique purview
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with founder and CEO of Respire, Susan Hunt Stevens. Key points addressed were the core tenants of Respire and their goal to help companies actualize integration and processes increasing aspects of company values. Positive work culture, sustainability and well-being. And social impact. Under each company's unique purview. Stay tuned for my informative talk with Susan Hunt Stevens.
[00:00:31] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status for industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:28] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today, I'm elated to be sitting down with Susan Hunt Stephens.
[00:01:35] She's the founder and CEO of Respire. You can find out more about her and the products that we're talking about on w w w w we Spier dot com.
[00:01:44] Welcome, Susan. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:48] Absolutely. I'm excited to look at the services that we Spier we're just talking off the record and the endeavors that you have within that company.
[00:01:55] And everything that you guys do is is so on the market right now. On trend for what? I think that a lot of the economy, especially the United States, is headed into and I can't wait to unpack that with you.
[00:02:05] And it's an interesting time, needless to say.
[00:02:09] Absolutely. Before we get into that, for everyone listening who might be new to this podcast, we will first read a bio on Susan prior to prepping her with questions.
[00:02:18] However, before I get to that, a quick roadmap to you all. Follow my line of inquiry. We will first look at unpacking Susan's academic background and early professional life that led her to founding Respire. Then we will also look at unpacking Respire itself. We'll start with the logistics, the who, what, when, where, how and why of the founding of it. Funding all of those things. And then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at the ethos and the philosophy of Respire and what the company is and stands for, as well as the utility of it and the different industries and audiences they serve. Then we'll look at goals that Susan has for this next one to three years in regards to Respire and perhaps herself personally. We'll wrap everything up with advice that Susan has for those of you who are looking to get involved with Respire or perhaps emulate some of her success as promised. Before we get into questions. A quick bio. Susan Hunt Stephens is the founder and CEO of Respire, an award winning employees experience technology platform focused on engaging people in purpose driven initiatives ranging from sustainability to social impact, holistic well-being and inclusive cultures. She founded Respire to use her digital behaviors change expertize to help people embrace healthier and more sustainable lifestyles. After her son was diagnosed with serious food allergies, she was named an e. Y Entrepreneur of the Year for New England, a Boston Business Journal Woman of Influence and to the Environmental Leadership Leader 100 list. Prior to We Spier, she spent nine years at the New York Times company, most recently as an SVP, general manager for Boston dot com, a 60 million dollar digital media division.
[00:03:59] So this is not so exciting and I kind of actually want to start there.
[00:04:02] I'm hoping that you can unpack your academic background and professional life leading you up to the founding of Respire.
[00:04:10] Sure. So in high school, my passion was journalism and I was fortunate enough to be at a high school in Spokane, Washington, with an outstanding journalism program and ended up editor of the school newspaper. I interned for ABC News. I went to college to be a journalist at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and worked for National Public Radio.
[00:04:33] And then about halfway through college, I realized that the starting salary for a journalist and my loans didn't match and needed to figure out something else to do.
[00:04:47] And so I tried one summer in government working in D.C. and realized that was not for me. And so got into business thanks to on campus recruiting and companies coming to recruit. But I've always had this passion for impact and feeling like your job needs to make a difference in this world. And so I remember having an offer for an investment bank to go work in investment banking and a consulting firm that was going to try to fix health care.
[00:05:18] And I think, you know, most would have chosen the investment bank and I picked health care. And if I look at my career and when I have been happiest and most fulfilled, it has been when I feel like the job that I am doing is connected deeply to making the world a better place for people. And I have had times where that was not true and it took having those kinds of jobs to make me realize this is impact thread throughout my career has been a really, really key one. And so I worked in management consulting for a health care consulting firm based in New York City, then went to business school, like many people do after three to four years of management consulting. So I went to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
[00:06:01] And then that is when I said I really actually think I want to go back into journalism and but on the business side.
[00:06:12] And so I worked my two years in business school to figure out how to get onto the business side of journalism organization. My dream in Life had been to work for The New York Times and to make a very. Long story short, because it was not an easy path. I did manage to land a job at The New York Times after business school in this thing. It was just getting started, called the digital side of The New York Times. They didn't even let us in the main building. We had this really rather lame office space over about four blocks away, you know, and at the time, there were people who would literally say out loud that they thought the Internet was a fad. It was that early.
[00:06:56] But I realized is that I got to be on the ground floor of building a digital news business is one of the earliest employees.
[00:07:05] And, you know, one of the things that I did that will connect my Weese by our experience is that we wrote the very first white paper on behavioral advertising and how you can use digital behavior to target at two people. And that makes them more effective. And things like that. And so I've got to write that white paper. And that really was an exciting place to be. New York City, early days of digital and so exciting that people start calling and asking if you want to help start new businesses and be an entrepreneur. And so one of the things that I did is left The New York Times after a couple of years to go be a co-founder of a startup. And that has the other connection to what I'm doing now with Weeds. Fire is I was an entrepreneur for two years. I co-founded a company with an amazing woman who is coming out of Microsoft. And we wrote it two very high pinnacles. And then 9/11 wiped us out literally and figuratively. We had all of our hosting and data centers in the basement of one of the World Trade Center towers and lost everything that day. But we had our lives. And that is something that I'm always grateful for, is that I lost a startup in the context of people who lost so much more that day, you know?
[00:08:33] And I think that's another life lesson that you bring into entrepreneurship, is as long as you're still alive and healthy, you can you can crawl back from anything.
[00:08:41] Absolutely. And similar things are happening now. You know, I think with the pandemic where I count myself among the lucky ones, even with having projects and things like that postponed and changed with it, to have my health, you know, and things of that nature.
[00:08:56] I'm wondering if you can really quickly. The New York Times, I've spoken to a couple of people that have had affiliations and things like that, but the time period in which you were there is so iconic to outlets for all media. You know, the change that happened during that time paired with the advent of digital changed. I mean, you know, the people still talking about the change with the advent of the Internet are the news outlets are people still talk and nobody else even acknowledges the change anymore. So I'm wondering just really quickly, if you would, I'm kind of indulgence. Can you describe the work environment like the the ether? I think it has a lot of mystique around it. And there are a lot of people that attributed to Hollywood, Eske, you know, moments. But did you find it to be an equal opportunity workplace? Was it behind the times? There's a lot of those industries. You know, long before Fox News was FOX, that was that was kind of the old guard. There was a lot of sexism. There was a lot of inequality of representation. And since your current company kind of deals with these issues, you can speak to not The New York Times now, but back then for working there to that effort.
[00:10:02] Yeah, so.
[00:10:03] So I had my first two years at The New York Times that I left and did a startup. But after 9/11, I actually went back to The New York Times and I spent another seven years there, but up in Boston.
[00:10:14] So what a lot of people don't realize is the New York Times company actually not only on The New York Times newspaper, but at the time a lot of other regional properties. And one of their biggest regional properties was the Boston Globe and Boston Dotcom up here. So I am extraordinarily grateful for my time at The New York Times, especially once I was on the senior management team in the properties because it was hindsight, 20/20 and incredibly progressive environment. So we had a chief diversity officer. You know, at this point I was there. This would have been 17 years ago who was really working to ensure that the company broadly had a very good career passing for women and underrepresented minorities. And our CEO at the time, Janet Robinson, was female, head of advertising, was female. So I had really strong female role models in in the company for for leadership. In fact, the person I came to work for in Boston became the chief customer officer for The New York Times.
[00:11:25] She's amazing. And. I feel like as a female executive, I had three women, at least, if not more, that I could look to who were just really, really amazing people and really good at their jobs and who were navigating, to your point, a company through just a extraordinarily painful transformation process. As you know, the digital side was growing, but the economics of the ad model are just completely different.
[00:12:00] The economics on the consumer side were very different. You know, when I was there, we weren't charging for any of the content in either location.
[00:12:10] You know, ads, you know, per impression costs. Even in digital, we're starting to get disrupted by ad networks and things like that. And so you were seeing the switch from prints to digital. But what was falling apart was the business model at its core. And being in an industry where a business model is falling apart is is really challenging. Some people, you know, embrace that that change and can really navigate through it and other people just implode. And I saw bubbles happen.
[00:12:43] But what I was always convinced of in my heart to heart and still am today is that the world needs journalism organizations like The New York Times and anyone on the business side who worked there had to be committed to this idea that if we don't figure out how to keep what our newsroom does alive is regardless of which format it's in, then who is going to give a voice to people who don't have one? Who is going to stand and check the power of businesses who may be doing things that they shouldn't be doing or governments that are doing things that they shouldn't be doing? And so it was a very mission driven business organization, in my experience, who really felt like we had to figure this out in some way, shape or form. And what was interesting about being at the Times versus a regional property is that the idea of charging for the content was in credibly challenging and political. And there were people who wanted to and people who didn't want to and all of this. But there was always this sense that what the Times did was truly unique and therefore very chargeable. I think when you started to look at the regional properties, it it was a it was a much it was a harder set of numbers to run. They didn't come out as strong, you know, and so it was. I actually think it's a harder decision. It was a harder decision to charge at the regional properties than it was for The New York Times. And then The New York Times has been extraordinarily successful at it and has proven you can do it, which is great. But I think some of the regional properties are still struggling. You know, there's a lot of free substitutes to regional news.
[00:14:31] Well, and everything needs to be, I think, measured when it comes to the evaluation of something like that against a different metric.
[00:14:38] And I think it's this similar concept of real estate trying to develop numbers for like houses that are incredibly different, you know. Now, on these very disparate characteristics and everything has to be, I think, each unique metric unto itself, especially when it comes to something like a powerhouse, like the Times, it's still being kind of tweeted about by our president from time to time.
[00:15:01] So which just means it's having an impact.
[00:15:05] That they weren't having an impact. It wouldn't upset people so much. But it's you know, the one thing I did get to do when I was at Boston, at the Boston Globe in Boston, dot com is Marty Baron, who is the editor at The Washington Post with the editor here. And he was an incredibly forward thinking editor about digital and really was a strong partner for me on the digital side. And so, you know, there was never a question about, you know, time and energy and resources being put into digital. And he really encouraged his team to embrace digital and to think about what digital recording does and can look at. And so I think so much of that mine is. Who did you get to work with? And were they resistant to what digital could do? Or did they see digital as a new opportunity for storytelling?
[00:15:57] Absolutely. And what a world that changed without maybe even having the foresight of that. I want to turn now to unpacking Respire, and I want to start with the logistics. So if you can tell us when it was founded. Who were the original founder? If it was you, other co-founders or additional sub founders, things of that nature. And did you take funding when you initially started out or was it bootstrapped?
[00:16:18] Yeah.
[00:16:18] So in I left the New York Times company in the fall of 2009, and then we Spier was a. Really incorporated in February of 2010. And my co-founder was Jason Butler, who I had worked with at Boston Acom, and then a few months later, another woman, Seraphine Robinson, joined the team as one of the members of the founding sort of group of people sitting around my dining room table. And the vision originally was that we were going to create essentially, you know, RunKeeper or Strata or Weight Watchers for sustainability, an app that you would use to motivate, inspire yourself to be more sustainable, to reduce energy and waste and eat healthier from organic and pesticide standpoint and things like that. And for about 18 months, that's what we did. We launched on Mother's Day 2010 because we thought moms would be the ones that would be most interested in being sustainable. We had some amazing partnerships with people like NBC Universal and Real Simple and others.
[00:17:29] And, you know, really, we're excited to see some explosive growth in the early days. And then we got into this really cool incubator space. But we were bootstrapping this entire time.
[00:17:41] And then right after we signed the partnership with NBC Universal, I did raise a seed round of capital from Converge Venture Partners here in Boston, which is a syndicate.
[00:17:52] It's a fund with a syndicate of most of the high tech successful CEOs and founders. So it's really this idea of founders funding founders. And it was was that 11 2012 when the seed round was the fall of 2010.
[00:18:09] OK, so you launched 10 and then seed round after round after we launched.
[00:18:14] Yeah, yeah, exactly. So right after the partnership with NBC launched in November, it was around that time at the end of 2010. But the challenge was that by 2011, I kind of knew this model wasn't going to work. I had spent a long time in digital consumer products. I knew what you needed to have from a viral coefficient. See, you know, how many users invite other users. And we had really high people loving the app, but really low recommending it to others. So we did a bunch of consumer insights. And basically what we learned is that people were hesitant to recommend the program, even though they liked it for themselves, to others, because they thought people would think they were judging their lifestyle or that they were a hippie liberal or would be like telling somebody they need to go to Weight Watchers. You could maybe say that to your sister or your mom or your best friend in a loving way, but you really can't broadcast it widely. But when you lose weight, people see it and then say, what did you do, you know? And then you have permission to tell them, well, when you are now buying organic chicken, nobody knows. So, you know, when you've just turned down the thermostat on your water heater, nobody, you know, this isn't something you see when you're being more sustainable. We didn't have that same. We had the stigma, but not the benefit of the visible changes. So I almost shot it down literally this month where I was just grubby. But we got on. We were able to on Earth Day 2011, got on to NBC and thought, OK, this is going to be it. You know, we're going to this is gonna give us thousands and thousands of users. And it didn't. It got a, you know, a few thousand, but not what we would have hoped.
[00:20:03] But the phone started ringing. And it was companies asking if we had an enterprise version of our sustainability program that they could use with their employees. And so after the first call, you kind of ignore the second one. You're like, huh? By the third call, I'm a big believer in three.
[00:20:20] By the third call, I'm like, all right, maybe there's a they are there. And so I started interviewing the chief sustainability officers and companies, thanks to some folks that have been helping us and some investors who knew people. And sure enough, companies forward thinking and kind of early companies like Seventh Generation and Organic Valley and folks were really struggling with employee engagement in sustainability and needed tools and technology to help them do it.
[00:20:47] That could measure the impact and tell them the benefit that their employees doing these things are having. And that's what we did. So we did a classic pivot, which I think happens a lot. 18 months in to two founders and decided to focus on running enterprise sustainability programs.
[00:21:06] And that's what we did exclusively from 2012 to 2016, is just run know large global companies from Disney to Caesars to eBay and others, their sustainability engagement programs.
[00:21:20] What techniques do you use? Because I understand the ethos and the philosophy of what you're talking about. But as far as the action items and you know, I'm also putting it into latter day times. This is back in 2011.
[00:21:31] I'm putting in 20, 20 times when you would start a Twitter campaign or launch a YouTube campaign or something of that nature would do that then.
[00:21:39] Yeah.
[00:21:40] So the whole behavior change component of we Spier is really based on some of the science and research that's come come out of B.J, Fogg's lab at Stanford on persuasive technology. And these techniques are most notably used in a lot of the social media apps.
[00:21:58] And the idea is that we combine a combination of game mechanics so and social mechanics and targeted personalized content to essentially close the gap between intent and action. And so it not only helps you understand and a specific pathway what the different micro choices are. So say you're wanting to, you know, eat less meat or eat more plants. What are the different decision points that you need to be thinking about? What are the different actions that you can take? That's the first piece. But then we have a point system, you understand which of these is most impactful? Do I want to do something that has a lot of impact or, you know, something that has smaller impact? And then as you do on your end points and as you do it more, you are an achievements that give you a sense of accomplishment to get a pat on the back. And then the social mechanic, you can see who else has done it. And when you see that a lot of other people have done something, it makes it so it's not so impossible. And then when you do it and somebody likes it and gives you a positive comment, you know, keep this up where you can share your story or things we see is that motivates people to keep doing more. So there's a lot of behavioral science behind how each of these campaigns, competitions or even events and idea boards is designed. But it can be that template, that behavior design template can be used for any sort of behavior change that you're wanting to make. And we sort of joke that at its core, we Spier is about, you know, helping people be better and helping humans make more positive choices. And we've chosen to focus now in four areas sustainability, social impact, well-being and inclusive culture. But it could be applied to almost anything.
[00:23:42] Yeah. Absolutely. I'm wondering this this. Do you have an algorithm that you employ or did you just look at the Stanford research so it it and this idea of looking at chain of command. You know, these micro choices that kind of end up in fruition to this end goal, this backtracking, if you will.
[00:23:59] I think it's been employed across industry for years to great. And it's one frequently overlooked. I think with social media can be a tool or can be a distraction. You know, in a lot of people have this miscommunication where they just immediately go to it before doing this kind of reverse action that it looks like you guys are doing. Do you have an algorithm that you currently plug in for companies once you've actually kind of crystallized the goal of the area that they need to reach out in or what they want to do personally, the kind of develop this game plan? This roadmap, if you will, of what needs to happen or is it's just research that you look at in order to form your own techniques.
[00:24:38] Yeah. So there's. There's algorithms kind of all over the platform that make the right things happen at the right time to get people to take action. And so baked in to the you know, the whole user experience is a lot of personalization that's driven by algorithms. A lot of understanding what content needs to be shown, at what time, what triggers need to be sent, at what time to make things happen. So there's a lot around that.
[00:25:08] But in terms of the actual wheel, we don't want is we don't want our customers who are largely, you know, program managers inside big global companies to have to suddenly become behavior designers. That's a complicated field. And so what we did is we baked all the behavior design elements automatically into the templates.
[00:25:31] They know what they want their people to do. They know generally that, you know, they're trying to drive energy efficiency.
[00:25:38] And the seven things in this role in this plant or in this property for these housekeepers is that this set of activities, what they didn't know is how to order them in a way that that got people moving and getting them the right feedback so that they could do more than they ever expected from the beginning. And then they get the sense of satisfaction and achievement that comes from active participation in the program. So what we say is that we use social mechanics, but it's not social media, per say. It's much more like what you would use in a game, you know.
[00:26:16] So I don't know if any of your listeners are big overwatched players or Destiny or Worlds of Warcraft or things like that.
[00:26:24] But all those mechanics that you see or even Mario, part of, you know, having levels and having quests and having challenges and having points and having ceremonies, all of that is are game mechanics and social mechanics of what you're doing with people. And we use those same kinds of things. We're just wrapping around real life behaviors as opposed to behaviors in a game.
[00:26:48] Yeah, absolutely. And it's exciting. I mean, looking at it from that standpoint, you know, there's a really measurable statistics to that.
[00:26:54] You can absolutely you can alter and tweak. And really, I feel like when you can take a process and make it more uniquely suited to an individual company, the more successful the process that's out of the can, out of the box moment is destined to be flat. As far as figures or yield or social impact return is which all of this?
[00:27:16] Well, one of the biggest AHA's I have and I know it tops a little bit into your background, and I'll never forget the day I was I was driving down from Santa Barbara to go to the airport in L.A. and I was coming through the Hollywood Hills.
[00:27:28] And one of the things that we were thinking about at that time were our programs, you know, the actual campaigns that people were running on the platform, because when we first started, they were just actions. And then it was like, well, these actions need themes and campaigns. So then it was the pathways with the actions. And one of the things I thought about was the studio approach, which is that, you know, no, no, no one can start a studio just for one movie.
[00:27:59] You know, a studio to survive needed to be a specialist in making lots of different movies and things like that. You didn't necessarily know what the public was going to want or what the interests were gonna be and things like that.
[00:28:10] But you had to kind of design it to to create these different things.
[00:28:14] And then these campaigns could have authors just like there's different directors and different producers and things like that. And what that gave us was really this idea that the content library of these behavioral programs should be a library that is open to all of our customers.
[00:28:31] And when they use the tools to design their own custom campaign, they should be given a choice. They can keep it private to themselves or they can share it back into the library and get credit for this great campaign that they just created that others can run. And so one of the things that's been really just fascinating to see is how customers, when they create something really successful, are very willing to share it to other customers and let them use it. Who then tweak and edit it and who put it back in. And so not only when you license the platform, you're getting access to these great tools to create these great content, but you're gaining access to the expertize of those who have gone before you and been successful. And you can modify and edit, you know, because some people use the word associates and others team members and things like that. You can always make those tweaks or modifications, but you're not starting from scratch every time.
[00:29:21] Absolutely.
[00:29:22] I'm wondering, given that and it sounds like it's this evergrowing platform and with the advent of it, it's got to affect the verbiage for all of your clients on the, you know, covered 19 pandemic end inclusive city of acknowledging reality has reached every industry I've spoken to, regardless of. One thinks of the applicability or not ignoring it is alienating someone's reality. I think it does. Absolutely. And I'm wondering, moving forward, what are some of the goals that you are employing with Respire or recommending that your clients kind of look at in shaping their particular reach or expanse or their own personal kind of social choices?
[00:30:01] Sure. So I'm going to paint a picture of what kind of our world was like immediately prior to Coalbed and then how Cobbett has influenced that. So we've been doing this for 10 years. But candidly, it was a niche business that was very small. There were certainly companies that were embracing sustainability and all of these things, but they tended to be large companies. The teams were understaffed, underfunded.
[00:30:29] But with the advent of the UNSCR GS, which really started to gain more momentum in twenty seventeen, we started to see companies coming together around this idea of responsibility and purpose, and they were bringing together these teams that had been really siloed. So we'd been working with sustainability for years. But now the sustainability officer was having responsibility for their social impact efforts there. Inclusive inclusively efforts and often even well-being and things like that.
[00:30:59] And so we're seeing this consolidation in the enterprise. And then in the last 12 months, whether it's been the letter that BlackRock has sent to all their portfolio companies about the importance of purpose, or Jamie Diamond and the Business Roundtable saying that business needs to have a purpose in addition to profit. The rise of ESG investing. There's just been this tailwind into people understanding the importance of purpose and therefore activating purpose in their enterprise. Like I had not seen in 10 years. So we came into COGAT thinking 20, 20. I was just going to be the most amazing year ever then covered, hit. But what was really fascinating to me is, is, you know, we obviously went rmo every single one of our clients that went remote.
[00:31:49] Some of our clients, everybody got furloughed because they were hospitality organizations or auto manufacturing.
[00:31:56] But digital engagement now became the only way of reaching your employees. And they had to engage and get them doing things related to health and safety, managing stress and stress and anxiety, remote work, best practices. And so we, thanks to our clients, were sitting there with the right tools at the right place at the right time to design these campaigns and programs to get their employees doing the things they absolutely needed them to do during combat. And so we've been almost countercyclical in the sense that, you know, yes, we got hurt by clients shutting down and not having any employees to charge for. But we also had these clients where, like, we need you up and running in two weeks and we need to launch this fund to do employee assistance in two weeks. So we need to launch this giving campaign or we need to launch this thing. And just as life was calming down, all of a sudden, the George Lloyd.
[00:32:50] Protests began and companies started responding and acknowledging that they have not been doing enough to build inclusive cultures and to create an anti-racist workplace. And we are sitting with a whole module that's around in reducing implicit bias, increasing allies, ship and all these programs we work to create immediately for several clients, you know, an anti-racist workplace program and have been now beginning to work with them, wanting to fundraise for donations to racial equity organizations. And so there's been, you know, in another module now a lot of momentum and change. And so, you know what? What it's done, in my opinion, is pulled forward the future by five years.
[00:33:41] If you had asked me where organizations were going to be feeling about remote work, digital engagement, equity and inclusion, mental health, you know, and then sustainability just continues to be more urgent and pressing, given we have very little time left to cut 50 percent of carbon emissions. So twenty, twenty five has started to happen in twenty twenty. At least, you know, for for these kinds of programs.
[00:34:10] What are the future goals for what you're doing with Respire like? And now that you feel like there's been this hyper consideration, what are the future goals?
[00:34:17] Yeah.
[00:34:17] So I have beliefs from day one that at some point in time every company of any significant size was going to need a technology platform like we Spier, having come out of marketing and seeing this transition in the 2000 to 2010 around marketing automation platforms.
[00:34:37] Companies have not had something to do, this level of sophisticated engagement and behavior change with metrics that prove business value for their employee efforts and were so I have just felt like this category was going to emerge. She'd been speaking about it for eight years, mostly to small groups of people. And so, you know, to me, it's really about how do I take us from being a relatively small organization with the right product, the right customer base into something that can service the global demand that I think it's going to be there. And so I'm looking very closely at, you know, who do you partner with, who you raise capital from? When do you do it? Because I also believe fully that we are not out of this anytime soon. And the economic dislocation that is going to occur over the next few years is going to be profound. And so, you know, I lost a business after 9/11. I manage the media business in the middle of the Great Recession. You know, this this this next few years is gonna be tough for everyone. And we need so we need to be prepared to work with the right people who understand that and yet recognize that by 20, 30, you know, this will just be a default piece of technology in every major workplace. Exciting loft. It it's exciting. It is exciting. It's just how do you make it happen? But the challenge is not to prepare.
[00:36:03] Right. Well, Susan, we're running out of time.
[00:36:06] And I wanted to kind of wrap up today with asking you and Craig that I have for most people that I speak with on this particular series, and that is if someone approached you from a safe social distance tomorrow or the day after and it was a young woman or female identified non binary individual, and they came up to you and said, I'm so glad I found you. I wanted to ask you, we have a friend in common. And I've spent the early part of my career, the bulk of it actually, you know, in this heavily steeped media and news company, it is once you're one of its most important transitions throughout all of history. And now I'm looking to go out on my own. And I've got this great co-founder. I'm thinking about a startup with one of the top three pieces of advice you would give that individual knowing what you know now.
[00:36:46] So the first would be to keep your day job as long as possible. Wow. Validating your hypothesis with a test group of users.
[00:36:59] One of the most important things I did with we Spier was 100 users. We called them the motherboard. And we we started with product paper prototypes of what we're gonna do and put in front of and got feedback. And then we built a really, really late prototype and put it in front of them, get feedback.
[00:37:19] And, you know, and I was still consulting on the side and bringing in because I didn't know and I don't think anyone knows until you start to put a new product or solution into somebody's hands, whether you have a there, there. And I think if you talk to most entrepreneurs, they pivot. You know, you don't.
[00:37:37] Your first idea usually I guess that's my second piece of advice, keep working because your first idea may not be the one that sticks.
[00:37:44] But if you have the right people around you and you're passionate about the problem, you're solving, not necessarily the product you've come up with to solve that problem. But if you're passionate, the problem, just keep going. You will find a way to solve that problem that will work. And then my third is, is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I speak somewhat frequently about. The prevailing messages that come from tech media in particular. But I think all startup media, which is that we glamorize the successes, that we generally tell the stories of those where it was an, you know, a relatively instant hit and three to four years. You're a unicorn. And that is not most entrepreneurial journeys. The vast majority of underground journeys are slow, long, painful processes of twists and turns and navigations.
[00:38:44] And you only hear about the company once they hit that inflection point. And you don't hear about the eight years it took to get there. And so, you know, sign up for and realize that this is a marathon. And so take care of yourself. Take care of your family and realize that what what you want to enjoy is the journey of being an entrepreneur, not just the destination of having a successful business.
[00:39:09] Absolutely. All right. I've got keep your day job while testing your idea, number one. Number two, surround yourself with people and be prepared to pivot.
[00:39:17] Keep the problem alive, but don't be overly married to the product. And number three, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's a game of endurance. And pay attention to your quality of life. Will you go along that marathon?
[00:39:28] Perfect.
[00:39:30] I love that so much. Well, Susan, thank you so much for coming on and giving us all of your information. I know you're busy. Everyone's at once these days kind of home, but twice as busy. And I really appreciate your time.
[00:39:41] It is so true. Exactly. Well, thank you for having me. It's been wonderful to be here.
[00:39:45] Absolutely. And for all of you listening, thank you so much for giving us your time today. And until we speak again next time, remember to always bet on yourself. Slaínte.
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Today I am talking with Laura Khalil. Laura is a speaker, teacher and host of the Top 100 Apple Podcast, Brave by Design, focused on helping women achieve incredible success in their careers and lives. She is a master storyteller, consulting with clients such as Twitter, GE, and Intel on how to use storytelling to improve the lives of their customers. Laura’s training unlocks the code to becoming magnetic to help ambitious women learn how to rise, lead with empathy, and live abundantly.
Key points addressed were
- Laura’s business and podcast both called “Brave by Design” and how she has used the core tenants of her public speaking and coaching advice platforms to influence her podcast narrative
- We also discussed Laura’s expertise in Podcast hosting and how she leveraged her skills based out of her former career in content marketing to become one of the top 100 Apple Podcasts on the market.
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Chatting with Lauren Smith; Event Planner & Founder of Modern Collective
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Today I am chatting with Lauren Smith. Lauren is a passionate event planner, connection creating expert, and lover of all thing’s events + travel. Lauren helps busy entrepreneurs create in person connection with their online community so they can strengthen their relationships, provide incredible value and turn their community into raving fans. With over 10 years of event planning experience working with Canada’s largest financial institutions, Lauren brings countless unique and innovative ideas, and an impressive tool-box of skills to the table for her clients, spanning from an unmatched ability to pivot on the spot, to killer negotiation skills and the creative ability to think outside the box.
Key points addressed were
- The particulars of the event planning industry and how her company uniquely addresses the requirements in the industries she conducts events with
- We also examined some stereotypes of the event planning’s industries’s past and how Lauren endeavors to redefine some of these attributes in the future
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with event planner and founder of Modern Collective, Lauren Smith. Key points addressed were the particulars of event planning industry and how her company uniquely addresses the requirements in the industries she conducts events with. We also examine some stereotypes of the event plannings, industries past and how Lauren endeavors to redefine some of these attributes in the future. Stay tuned for my informative chat with Lauren Smith.
[00:00:32] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status. For industry, we aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM. You can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:30] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. My name is Patricia and I am your host today. I am excited to be sitting down with Lauren Smith. Lauren is an event planner and founder of Modern Collective. You can find out more about it on her Web site. W w w dot. Modern collective dot. S.A. Welcome, Lauren.
[00:01:50] Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here.
[00:01:53] Absolutely. I'm excited to unpack what you're doing, too.
[00:01:55] We've had a lot of audience and listeners reach out over the past year, actually, and talk about wanting me to talk with speak with the founder regarding what you do and your industry with events and things like that. And so I'm really excited to help unpack it all for everyone listening as well as for my own education. Before I get to unpacking everything with Lauren, for those of you who have not listened to before, I will give you a quick roadmap of today's podcast and then I will read a bio on Lauren. Before I start peppering her with questions. Today's podcast will follow the same trajectory as all of those in the series. Our inquiry will first look at her academic background and professional life. And then we will start unpacking everything that is based on a modern collective. We'll get into the logistics for those young entrepreneurs out there who, what, when, where, why, how. As far as when it was founded, funding all of those co-founders questions. And then we'll turn into the ethos and the populations and some of the industries that Lauren's company serves. And we'll then look towards future goals and endeavors that she hasn't. We'll wrap everything up with advice that Lauren has for those of you who are looking to get involved or perhaps emulate some of her success. A quick bio on Lauren. As promised, Lauren Smith is a passionate event planner, connection creating expert and lover of all things, events and travel. Lauren plays busy, helps Ari learn, helps busy entrepreneurs create in-person connection with their online communities so they can strengthen their relationship, providing credible value in turn their community into raving fans. With over 10 years of event planning experience working with Canada's largest financial institutions. Lauren brings countless unique and innovative ideas.
[00:03:37] And an impression, too impressive tool box of skills to the table for her clients, spanning from an unmatched ability to pivot on the spot to killer negotiation skills and the creative ability to think outside the box. So I love the idea of modern collective learn. I know you've been in the game for quite some time. But before we get to that, I'm hoping that we can start off with you describing a little bit about your academic and professional life that brought you to founding it.
[00:04:10] Yeah, totally.
[00:04:11] I love it. OK. So I remember when I was choosing a profession or degree to go into when I was entering college. My dad always said to me, I don't really care what you do, I just want you to do it for yourself.
[00:04:23] So pick a field that you love that inspires you. And just figure out what that path looks like for you. So I've always been quite sociable. I love experiences. I love creating connection with people. So the event industry of just like popped up on my plate and I was like, you know, I think I'm going to explore this, but I need the business background to it as well. So I took a business management program with a specialization in event planning, management and marketing through that. I went to it was a three year program. We learned literally everything behind the scenes of events. We had internships of all of the stuff that you do when you were in college, university. And then I from there went and worked for a financial institution where I started as coordinator. And within two years, I worked myself up to director and then got promoted to V.P. right before I left. And I was running all of the events for this brand who actually had three brands in total nationally across Canada. So that meant incentive programs, golf tournaments, conferences, owner meetings, kind of everything that they had to do with events is what I would run. And it was so fun. It was traveling the world with these beautifully big budgets that I could really do what I wanted with and explore the world with, quite literally. And then when I left there, I went and worked for Scotiabank. I was high level management, same thing running events, marketing and customer experience in one of their large divisions. And I was only there for about six months until I realized that. The corporate world wasn't me. I really wanted to follow that entrepreneurial path. And I knew what I wanted at this point, and that's kind of when I jumped and went on my own.
[00:06:14] Nice. That's cool. So sounds like you had. I like the idea of playing with big budgets in my career path. Past when I the larger the budget.
[00:06:23] I think that the smaller the budget, it creates a creativeness and a, you know, feistiness that one needs. But the larger the budget actually allows you to play around with what exactly that? More power, larger budgets, bigger scales. And it can be unnerving. And so it's a great way to kind of get your feet wet into still keeping some of the core concepts from smaller budgets that you need. You know, getting the best bang for your buck and making sure that you're really pushing all of the budgeting aspects. You can spend a lot of money on events, you know, with food or with venue or just different things like that, and really funding out per industry where you want to add per event where you want to spend money works at a larger scale with bigger budgets. So what pushed you into starting? Let's start with the logistics. When did you launch Modern Collective? Which year? And did you have any co-founders? And did you have any startup capital?
[00:07:16] Yes.
[00:07:16] So I I launched the idea, bought the Web site, did the domain sort all the branding in 2016? So that would have been four years ago now. And I knew that that was my fallback plan. But being young, traveling the world, I had moved my whole life out west to live in Vancouver. I was still living that gypsy life. I wasn't yet ready to leave that secure income until I actually just hit my one year mark of completely being on my own, running my own company. So Modern Collective officially launched in April of twenty nineteen. And no co-founders, no starting capital, just me and a belief in myself. And I just quit one day and made it happen.
[00:07:58] How did you start with your client acquisition? Was it people you'd known before? How did any of that work?
[00:08:06] So quite a few of the clients were people I'd known before who had said to me throughout my entire career. When are you going to go in on your own? I can't wait to work with you like it's a dream come true to be able to work with you now that you have capacity. And then the other half of them came. I also run a women's networking group in Toronto where we focus on supporting female entrepreneurs in business by giving them the tools and resources that they need to be successful. So quite a few of my clients came through there because it was just such a natural fit that the people I was serving were perfect with people in my community.
[00:08:38] Nice. And so did you relocate relocate from Vancouver to Toronto when you went full time for yourself? And if so, what? Was there any business reason for the geographical change?
[00:08:48] So I'm from Toronto. Naturally born and raised, my whole family is here in my early twenties. My dad actually suffered a stroke which took away his ability to speak. So from twenty one into twenty five, I was a full time caregiver. I gave up the early 20s that all my friends tied with the backpacking through Thailand and doing all that stuff to really stay home and support my dad in his stroke recovery. So with that, when I hit twenty five, he was healthy. Life was feeling a little bit more stable. So at that point I said to my parents, like, I need to go and do something for me and I need to to be a kid. And the head office of the company I was working for at the time was in Vancouver. So they packed up my car and drove out west and worked up there and lived out there for a couple of years. And then things started to go south with the company and it was ready for me. Ready? I was ready. Sorry to come home. So it kind of just like transitioned. I transitioned home in twenty seventeen while I was still working for Scotiabank. So the entrepreneurial journey didn't come until after I had already moved on.
[00:09:54] I picture it being something that, you know, it would be helpful to have like a lot of contacts and networking and colleagues, but it sounds like it worked well for you to come back in and within a couple of years launch. I want to climb into it. First of all, when I hear events that we and I talked a little bit off the air before we started about this, but when I hear events and event planning, it's just such a massive industry and end back in the day. You know, you'd say events and people immediately thought wedding planning, massive events, personal events and then corporate corporate events, corporate retreats, all sorts of things like that.
[00:10:31] And it sounds like you've had you've spanned those genre are the industry and the different aspects of it while you were working for corporate. What does the term events mean for your your company modern collective as it is right now? And do you have areas that you specialize in, specific events that you specialize in, or a profile of client that you help with their events?
[00:10:53] Yeah, I do. So I will not touch a wedding with a 10 foot pole. I have trusted friends and colleagues that I will hand off any wedding, whether that's a travel destination, wedding, intimate wedding or like a big one. I just it's not it's not what makes me happy. And that's not going to serve my client in the long run. I have friends, like I said, that are incredible wedding planners that I would very gladly hand that off to. I also don't typically do PR events, so I won't do a red carpet. I won't do social events from that perspective. My happy place and my my skills are really best to use when it comes to corporate retreats, incentives, conferences, meetings, and then supporting female entrepreneurs in doing similar events to corporate. But obviously on the entrepreneur budget. So I just did a retreat in Bolly for a female owner and we really worked together on building the entire program, budgets, all that stuff to serve her her clients. So it's a little bit of both. A lot of it is female entrepreneur focused. I love supporting women doing incredible things. But then I also still have that side of me that loves the large corporate unique events, the trouble, the incentive program. So it's twofold. I do female entrepreneur events that are mostly retreats and then large corporate incentives and conferences.
[00:12:11] Nice. So what do you what falls under the purview of an event planner? And how does that. Is it a widely accepted understanding of the curriculum or does it change per event planner? So for everyone listening. What? Like you just mentioned, budgets and things like that. I know that some event planners don't work with that aspect or they only work with the aspect of the budget in so much as certain things where they have people under their umbrella that work within it. So what all falls in under the purview or the umbrella of event planning for you?
[00:12:43] Yeah. So again, it's an it depend on the program. Let's see. As a female entrepreneur, for example, who's building a retreat, I will take her literally from IDEO all the way through to execution. So we will build the budget. We will build the ticket pricing. We will talk about transfers, gifting their sponsorship, build out. Really, everything that encompasses the event is something I want to support them with because I love the control of it. I don't want me to be working on one aspect of the event and someone else be working on another. I just think for events like that small, it's not cohesive and is going to get dropped or I'm better managing the entire aspect of it and then having someone on my team help me with the logistics of it. And then from like call our corporate conference, you're gonna have your in-house planner who has done the budget, who has really worked through what those numbers look like. And then I'm just executing on the numbers that they've given me. So for me and for my company, we do it all. That being said, I have some other people in the industry that I know are event managers. So you're not doing the full buildout. You're just fully executing. You're not hands in, you're kind of just like data. So for me, like I said, it's it's all. Management of the program. But for others, it might just be Dave.
[00:13:59] Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's the discrepancy that I'm thinking about as well. There are a lot of people that don't have their hand in that. And then you're gonna need someone else to communicate. An event manager would need to communicate with an event coordinator or budget or something like that. So I'm curious, with moving into it, you have like this you have a clientele that you are working with, you know, this some kind of describing who you prefer to work with, female entrepreneurs and things like that.
[00:14:27] It kind of begins to take on an ethos of a branding. And you think a lot about how your branding events and things of that nature. And I'm interested to see how people like that kind of take it and flip the mirror on themselves. How have you chosen to brand yourself as a company, especially as you've kind of honed into your niche markets and things like that with that kind of plays into the ethos of the philosophy of of who you are and your brand for your clients.
[00:14:52] Absolutely. So the big thing for me is I want my brand to feel comfortable. I want people, people to look at me from your Instagram. I want to get to know me personally. I have this very genuine and authentic feeling, and I wanted my brand to represent that. It was super important to me that when people saw my brand, what does it matter what background you come from, your skin color, your religion, none of that stuff. I wanted them to immediately feel comfortable and like they wanted to have me in their corner. So in coming up with my branding, it was a warm feeling. It was an inspirational feeling. So there's you'll see lots of troubled photos and lots of funny quotes, because that's also who I am. I'm a little bit goofy and I really want people to feel comfortable with me. And I kind of pulled off of a lot of the feelings when I was corporate. A lot of the things I'm so proud of and that draw people to work with me. Used to be things I would get in trouble for. And I found that once I started to, like, follow that authentic and not real vibe in that real part of who I am. My people started to find me. So my clients are people that I end up becoming really good friends with because it is such an intimate experience and they become some of my closest friends. And that's what I wanted in in building my business was I didn't want it to be a cold and not personal experience. It's quite the opposite. It's warm and it's funny. And we're talking all the time and we're literally traveling the world together and building these incredible experiences that people will remember for the rest of their lives.
[00:16:17] Yeah, absolutely. And to that end, kind of pulling on that thread further. You talked about, you know, becoming close with your clients, new client acquisition, new business development. Do you find that a lot of it comes to you or are you developing it through social media like Instagram? How are you kind of developing new business?
[00:16:33] A lot of it is is me. I don't have a sales team that really sells events for me yet. That is definitely on the plan for the future. Honestly, a lot of it right now is people that have said to me, working with you is on my vision board. And I followed you on social media. I followed your journey. And I really genuinely just would love to create something incredible with you, which has really benefited me. I've literally not really had to put money in ads or any of that type of stuff. It's all been word of mouth. Someone so knows a person. They introduced me. And it has kept me completely at capacity since I launched, which is so cool.
[00:17:11] Nice. I'm wondering, like you talked about a story where a vision board. I think about storyboards with design and things like that. When you talk about an event, truly beautiful events that I have attended over the past few decades have been one that was the thoughtfulness is conveyed. And I think that comes through with them, you know, kind of developing a storyline and a theme and a thread. And it sounds like you you you do that like you consider it and you do things. What is that process like? Were you taught it in your career, in your corporate life? Did you teach it to yourself? Did you develop like this kind of mold or boilerplate that you bring everything to that you can kind of unpack it and follow like a proper outline? How does that all work?
[00:17:57] So a lot of it is very much a brainchild of mine. So when I first have a client, come on, we'll hop on a call and I'll say, what's your vibe? We use Pinterest quite a bit. I have Instagram folders saved on my phone. So if I'm scrolling and I see something that I think might be the vibe of one of my clients, I'll just shoot over to them and say, like thinking about this for your retreat. And they're like, yes, you've nailed it. So through conversations like that, I start to understand what they want. We also get very specific on our first couple of calls. What are huge no knows what our dream brands that you want to collaborate with. Talk to me about sustainability. Talk to me about colors and vibes. And let me see your sales page. Let me see your branding. And let me help you build out this experience for you, because it is such a personal and one off experience. I don't really put it through. I mean, I do have a process that my team goes through, but it's more so than me letting my creative brain explore and build these really cool things out for people. The other thing I like to do is how would I feel attending an event? What would make me feel special? What would make me say, oh, my God, this was a one off experience, which in turn reminds me of who was with me during that experience. So my end goal for clients is for when they're their clients. Think of Bolly, they think of the client because it was this incredible experience that they gave them. Then they'll refer to them. So when I'm thinking of things, it's not just from a beautiful experience. It's how is that experience going to directly affect my client and make their business stronger?
[00:19:33] Yeah, absolutely. So you going to expand with your like your head count? How many can you take on at this point if there starts to become more of a damn demand?
[00:19:45] Will you grow your business? And if so, do you foresee any issues in managing teams underneath you?
[00:19:52] Great question. So I actually just did a huge restructure of a client clients, we're taking on what it looked like after one on one planning and I cut it in one quarter. Twenty five percent of the Americans I was bidding for is who I am taking right now, because I will to give those clients that tailored experience. That being said, if someone wants company so involved, but not from a Wannna active, I do have a coordinator that she's incredible who can work with me for about six months now. She understands my process and she often will come to me with ideas that I've already had and we work really well together. So from one of my perspective, I've actually gone back. But going forward, we will be expanding our team to facilitate the increase in onboarding of clients.
[00:20:42] Yeah, absolutely. I was wondering when there's a growth because you have such a, you know, founder's fingerprint on what you've done so far and people who have thought about it. Sometimes it's a seamless transition and sometimes it's a little bit of a growing pain, you know, because so much of what you're providing right now is you and and things like that, when you even when you have the initial intake or you develop the ad structure and have someone else implement it. It can be tricky. And that's one of the handoffs that a lot of young founders find to be, I think, seamless because they thought so much about it and they're concerned with it or, you know, a little bit of a growing pain and a hiccup. I'm curious, what are the most difficult aspects? So this is reaching into a lot of we had a lot of people write in regarding my speaking with event planners and and people of that industry. And we kind of collated all of their questions. And so I'm just going to kind of rapid fire them at you. And so one of them is what are the most difficult aspects of event planning that the person, just the lay person or someone outside of the industry doesn't know about from the outside?
[00:21:51] So when the issues when something goes wrong, so I always give the example that an event planner is very much like a duck on the surface. We're super calm and collected in life. Just looks beautiful. But underneath we're pedaling so quickly to try and make something happen or not cover up a mistake. But when I'm onsite with a client and something goes wrong, I do not want my client to worry or stress or think that I don't have the situation under control. You're coming up very quickly with a solution to this problem. And then once the problem has been solved, then you presented to the client, hey, this just happened. I want you to be in the loop. It's been completely covered. Nothing to stress about. But this did happen, and I think you should know about it. That is one of the hardest parts of the job because you still have to have that smile on your face and be your fun, goofy self on program. Meanwhile, someone could be in the hospital and you're trying to manage what that looks like. So people think event planning and then especially travel event planning is that it's all beautiful in this. I'm on a beach drinking margarita all the time when really that problem only happens one percent of the time. And that misconception, I think, is the hardest thing to manage.
[00:22:57] Yeah, absolutely. And enjoying that margarita when you're still working is a little bit different. Even being on addict locations when you're there working, I think that's no better way to kind of ruin, you know, the idea of a vacation, depending on what you think vacation is, I suppose, to top things to keep in mind when planning an event of any size. So we do a lot of people reach out and say they wanted to know kind of how to vet event planners. You know, there's what questions to ask.
[00:23:27] And one of them was saying, like, what are some some areas to really keep in mind for what the event planner is paying attention to versus not. That helps them decide who they'd like to go with.
[00:23:39] I think the biggest thing is going to be asking that flat question of, hey, when have things gone wrong and events and how did you handle them asking for referrals to their past clients if they're comfortable. It's gonna be a huge thing. And then the other thing that I think is so important is have them actually do a little assignment for you. So this is a little bit unconventional, but it's how I practice all of my either hiring a team member or working with a new company is OK. Okay, here's the situation. Let's say here's a budget that I want to work with or here's a destination I want to go on. Can you just send me a mock idea of what this might look like? And then through that process, you'll see how they think about things. You'll see how their problem solving your transportation, or you'll really start to see what they think about and the questions that they come back to you with. So if they say, yes, no problem, here it is. And they have it to the next day, I might raise some concerns that there was no questions asked if there was no deep diving and getting to know the client at the end of the day before they they jumped in and started making all these these plans and expectations for the client without actually getting to know to know them.
[00:24:48] Interesting. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm asking questions back. Sounds like it would be a major one, especially in getting able to pitch the correct aspects. So I'm wondering what's unique about your team and your event planning, like aside from this thoughtfulness that we talk about and things of that nature?
[00:25:08] When you think about your business and you compare it to other event planners that, you know, what kind of aspects do you think about that really set you apart that are unique with you?
[00:25:18] I think the biggest thing is I'm not in it for the sale. I don't need to pad my bank account any bigger. I just want my client and them to really genuinely have an incredible experience. So that for me is something I've learned throughout my career working for other third parties, working corporate, as everyone just seems to go through the process so quickly. And it's OK, we're done. This event, what's the next one look like? But for me, it's more how is that experience? How can we make it better next time? How can we build on that and start to increase the client experience or customer experience at that point? Another thing is, I'm super, super goofy. I'm professional. And I'm all that stuff, but I'm always laughing. I think being polite and being nice to your service staff, to your suppliers, to everyone involved in the event is what sets any event planner apart. And it's actually the thing I pride myself on the most is any venue, vendor or supplier service. I've worked with has always thanked me for being so nice, which confuses me because I feel like everyone should just be that gracious and nice and understanding that issues are going to happen. And it's not how or is not when the issue comes up, it's how you deal with it that is going to set you apart. So I think that's something I'm super proud of, is that I don't yell at people. I'm not mean. I'm just really nice and fun to be around. And I like to set the stage for the experience. So I'm fine. And I'm always dancing and laughing and like really making people feel welcome and like that. This is about to be a once in a lifetime experience.
[00:26:44] Absolutely. Listen, let's get into Kovar talk. You know, you hear events, you think, wow, that's going to be an industry that was heavily impacted. Have you been asked or approach to kind of curate an online event?
[00:27:01] And is it something that you would consider kind of pivoting and looking towards? And how has that covered 19 pandemic affected you? Have you had. Have you encouraged people to delay until there is a vaccine? How has how have you kind of navigated through all of those waters?
[00:27:19] Yes. So when Cauvin first hit, I had a couple of clients with massive events for this year. We had one scheduled for June one for August one for October. And I remember sitting down with my client and this would've been like early March when we were having the conversation and they didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what was going on. But as a professional in this situation, I had to come up with a plan and make them feel comfortable that, you know what? Nobody knows what's happening right now, but we're going to navigate it the best that we could. So. Right. Right off the bat. Hundred percent. We had events to reschedule. Cancel. Have those conversations with venues. I think that's also what's going to set an event planner apart from someone who likes to say their event planner. And I'm not saying that you just disrespect, but I know some people that say, oh, I'm an event planner, but you've been doing it for a year because he planned your wedding. And that's completely different than someone who's been doing it for 10 plus years, went to school for it knows the lingo is is dealing with these suppliers. There's such a difference. And I can't I can't stress that enough. And it all came out during coalbed. So negotiating these contracts for my clients. There was one client. I got them out of a fifty thousand dollar contract that they would have been out of pocket for, but they couldn't sell tickets. So it literally would have been a personal expense. And through experience and relationships and all that stuff, we were able to push it to next year. Which is what they wanted to do. So Kofod hit and it was super scary for the industry. And obviously we're still recovering and we will be for years. But I think it kind of weeded out a little bit of the people that we're putting on that face that they knew what they were doing when they kind of were defined by the seat of their pants in terms of online events. Yes. One hundred percent. We're launching an online event in the fall for that collective that I also run for the women's events and community. That's a whole other ballgame, but it's also a good thing because you can reach more people, you can reach bigger sponsors, you can really increase your revenue that way. Of course, you're gonna be missing that in person connection. But there's definitely ways to do that online that you couldn't even do before in person. So it's an interesting time for sure to be in the event space. But I'm quite excited about what the future looks like. It's going to be a transition. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it is going to get better. And I think we'll come out of this stronger.
[00:29:38] Yeah, absolutely. And I agree. I agree. If what you said across all industries, I think that one of the things that has happened is that people who you can stay in the industry and are the ones that ought to you know, it's shaking up out of people with mediocre talent and leaving the ones here around.
[00:29:54] I think that our expertize at what they do. I'm curious looking towards the future, because things have kind of changed a lot. Everyone's had a new conversation, given the pandemic about where the future goals are headed. And it sounds like we've already talked about a little bit about this, about you cutting back down 25 percent things of that nature. But do you have any other future goals for the next one to three years for where you'd like to see your company and skills headed?
[00:30:19] I do, I do, and this is such an exciting question for me, because I have been having this on my vision board for for probably over five years. I've always wanted to launch and add another arm of my business that is a boutique, high end travel agency. I currently have to partner with another travel agency because the law is that I can't if I'm not licensed, I can't book flights and I can't collect money for travel unless I'm I'm licensed as a travel agent. But the way I run my business and with the retreat's and all of that really intimate type of events, it's so hard for us to make that seamless transition when partnering with an outside travel agency. So I have always wanted to become my own troubled agency story and just make that experience a very incredible high touch in-house experience. So I'm running my test this week and that is going to be launched fully in the fall. And then with that, obviously, comes the build out of hiring on other travel agents and really making that kind of its own standalone travel agency as well. So that's a big one. That's coming up.
[00:31:26] Does that change? And are you based out of Canada? Does that change for working with clients who are based other parts of the world? I'm in the States. Would that change for someone in the United States as to what you can provide them with? Or how does that work?
[00:31:43] It will only get better from here on out. So the event space is one of those industries where it depends who you ask and how how you run your business. There's loopholes for sure. And a lot of things I'm there are very transparent person. I would rather spend an extra year and an extra ten, ten thousand dollars in school to be able to do it right and provide that experience for my clients. So it's more so based on where I'm based and the services that I can provide. So by doing all this testing, I will then be able to provide services worldwide, legitimately.
[00:32:15] That's exciting. So we are ready.
[00:32:18] So the end of the podcast and I get to ask my favorite question that I always ask, and that is if you were at a safe social distance at a park or a garden tomorrow and someone walked up to you and said, Lauren, I'm so glad I caught you.
[00:32:32] I am. I've been hanging out. I went to school for I love events, planning. I was in corporate for several years. I had these huge budgets. I really garnered and gleans a lot of information. I think the time has come for me to branch out on my own. What are the top three pieces of advice that you would give? Let's say this person is a female female identified or known by an individual, one of the top three pieces of advice you would give them, knowing what you know now.
[00:33:02] That's a good question. I would say jump before you're ready, because if you wait until you're ready, you'll never do it because they'll always be an excuse. Well, I can't do it now. I have to save money. Like there's so much that we tell ourselves. That keep us from doing what we want. So I'd say just do it scared. The second thing is invest in a business coach. I could not do what I have done and I would not be where I am without my coach literally being my my greatest support and guiding me through the process. Because here's the thing. I can I can run an amazing event and I can put together an incredible budget and get all this incredible sponsorship. But if you talk to me about email funnels and building a business, it's just it's like a foreign language to me. But the opposite goes for my coach. She is incredible at that. So I do what she tells me to do and I don't fight back. I literally will do exactly what she tells me to do. And it works like the first three months in business. I had already hit six figures because of what she had told me to do. So invest in a business coach. As your first thing to do and then the third thing, I think you have to be your own biggest cheerleader. There's been days when I don't want to get out of bed because Cauvin happened and I'm like, what is going to happen for my business? How am I going to show up for my clients right now? I'm scared. I don't understand what's going on. But you just have to do it. And. I don't see this to be insensitive, but being a business owner, you have to be able to get through the tough days. There are days when I don't believe in myself and I don't think that it's possible, but I do it anyways. And I think that some people get scared of that. And they're like, well, I don't believe that I can push myself through it. And that's the biggest thing is learned to be your biggest cheerleader and show up when you don't want to show up.
[00:34:42] Nice. I like that. As far as the investing a business courage, I just saw another little question there I want to grab before I let you go.
[00:34:50] For people, I've I've heard this a lot. And then we've had feedback from audience. And I'm always mean to ask, how did you find yours and how again, how did you get a business coach?
[00:35:01] So I do not recommend Googling business coach, finding one right away and purchasing whatever they have to offer. I think your business coach very much needs to vibe with you and who you are and your goals and your values and and who you are at the core. So my business coach, I actually found her through Instagram. She's Tronto based as well. And I started to digest her content about eight months before I actually hired her. So I downloaded her freebees. I joined her email list. I engaged with her through Instagram, responding to her stories. And I really wanted to feel how she was going to interact with me, because if she was just going to blow me off just like whatever, like this girl's not paying me, so I'm not going to provide her any of my time or attention. She wasn't the fit for me. But throughout the process of us engaging, we actually became quite good friends. She spoke at an event for me, and then she's actually one of the ones that helped me. Be ready to jump and do it on my own. I had the belief and I knew and I was ready, but I knew that having that support in my back corner that I couldn't fail. So it was about eight month process of figuring out what that looks like and don't just narrow in on one. Like if you think that there's three or four that you might enjoy, engage with them. Download older stuff. See if their content actually works for you. Like some coaches might teach in a way that you're not going to understand. So take the time to get to know them. And Instagram is a beautiful thing and ask people for recommendations. If you see someone that has a business, folks, just ask them, hey, what do you think? I'm thinking about it. I have questions. Were you effective here or were they effective there? Be open and ask as many questions as possible, because it is a very important relationship that you're going to get into.
[00:36:39] Yeah, absolutely, I agree. And the right ones everyone swears by, you know, they always make these top three pieces of advice. All right. So I have no one jump in before you're ready. No. To invest in a business coach, as we just talked about.
[00:36:51] Number three, be your own cheer squad and love that. That's so perfect. Lauren, we are out of time, but I want to say thank you so much for giving us all of your information and relaying your story today. I really appreciate it.
[00:37:04] Chris, thank you for having me. This was so much fun.
[00:37:06] Absolutely. For us, too. So for everyone listening, we've been talking to Lauren Smith. You can find out she's an event planner and founder. You can find out more about everything we've been talking about online. It's w w. W w. Modern collective. Dot. C, a..
[00:37:20] And thank you for giving us your time today until we speak again next time. Remember to stay safe and always bet on yourself. Slainte.
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Talking with Renata Joy; Founder, Nutrition Expert, and Personal Trainer
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Today I am talking with Renata Joy. Renata is a personal trainer, nutrition expert, and the founder of Pure Joy Wellness—a community-based lifestyle brand that helps women over 50 improve their lives through fitness, nutrition, and self-care. A former Emmy-nominated television producer, Renata started Pure Joy Wellness to teach women the importance of taking care of themselves, and to show them how to regain their health and revitalize their bodies and spirits. She’s on a mission to change the conversation around aging, and to give women who have been left behind a voice. At 63, Renata is living proof that you can be confident and healthy at any age, and she’s created a space where women can talk about whatever issues they’re dealing with—everything from menopause, nutrition, and fitness, to supplements, skincare, and mental health.
Key points addressed were
- The philosophy and core values around Renata’s lifestyle brand and consultancy work in her company Pure Joy wellness
- We also discussed Renata’s current work and future endeavors with women over 50, a population that is largely underserved and under heard from in contemporary health venues
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with founder, nutrition expert and personal trainer Renata Joy. Key points addressed were the philosophy and core values around Renata's lifestyle branding consultancy work in her company, Pure Joy Wellness. We also discussed were not his current work and future endeavors with women over 50, a population that is largely underserved and under heard from in contemporary health venues. Stay tuned for my enthralling conversation with Renata Joy.
[00:00:33] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status for industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.
[00:01:32] I am your host, Patricia. And today I'm elated to be sitting down with Renata Joy. She's the founder, nutrition expert and personal trainer behind her website and her work. You can find out more about it. W w w dot. Pure joy, wellness dot com. Welcome, Renata.
[00:01:49] Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
[00:01:51] Absolutely, I'm excited to pepper you through. I was just telling you off the air you are the encapsulation of the proof in the pudding. And our audience will kind of understand what that means as I am. Pack everything with you. But before I do that, for everyone listening, if it is your first time listening, I will read a bio on. We're not set to kind of give you a foundation of where we're coming from. Before I start peppering her with questions. But first, a roadmap for today's podcasts. You can follow the trajectory in which I based my inquiry out of. I will first look at asking her not to describe her academic and professional history, kind of bringing her up into founding and developing pure joy, wellness and all of her work within that, and then will turn straight to unpacking the Web site to the particulars of the business, everything all the logistics for those early followers about the founding aspects, the who, what, when, where, how, why, founding cofounding, all of that. And then we'll turn towards the ethos and the philosophy behind the company culture and some of the theory there that I think that we're not to herself as a walking testimony to. And then we'll look at the goals and plans that we're not set has for the next one to three years. That is a dialog that has changed for all of us drastically with the advent of the COVID 19 pandemic. And then we'll wrap everything up with advice that we're not to has. For those of you who are looking to get involved with what she does, as well as emulate perhaps some of her career successes. So, as promised, a quick bio on Renata. Renata Joy is a personal trainer, nutrition expert and the founder of Pure Joy Wellness, a community based lifestyle brand that helps women over 50 improve their lives through fitness, nutrition and self care. A former Emmy nominated television producer. We're not a started. Pure joy wellness to teach women the importance of taking care of themselves and to show them how to regain their health and revitalize their bodies and spirits. She's on a mission to change the conversation around aging and to give women who have been left behind a voice at sixty three. Renata is living proof that you can be confident and healthy at any age. She and she's created a space where women can talk about whatever issues they're dealing with, everything from menopause, nutrition and fitness to supplements, skin care and mental health. So we're not. I love what you do. We have a lot of platforms that indeed have serious intersections and parallels. But before we get into unpacking your brand, your lifestyle brand and pure joy wellness, I'm hoping you can kind of give us a description of your academic background and professional life that kind of brought you to developing pure joy wellness.
[00:04:23] It's really interesting because my academic background really didn't have anything to do with what I'm doing right now. I went to school for radio, television and motion pictures. So that was sort of like my goal. I was going to be. Never thought I would be on to TV, which I ended up going into. I thought I would be and to radio, which music was always really, really important to me. I play piano and music with everything to me. So I was a disc jockey in the early eighties for Jazz Radio Station because I was very passionate about jazz, but went to school for radio, television, a motion pictures and did really, really well a week before I graduated. I got a job at my first television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a production assistant. Now, some would say if you think about this climate that we're in right now and back in the actually nineteen seventy eight is when I got my first job in television. I was hired because of affirmative action. So the television station needed to hire a black person and I knew that. And so going in and I was hired for that reason. But I was also qualified to do the job. So I went from a production assistant to a producer to senior producer to executive producer of a show called Evening Magazine. An Evening magazine at the time was the first show that had a male and female co-host. I know it's hard to imagine that now, but back then only men were posting television shows. And so this is the first time a male and a female co-host did a show. And so through that particular show, I traveled all over the world. I was one of the wall pickers at the Berlin Wall to knock that sucker down. And so I have parts of the wall. I got to spend some time with Anwar Sadat and Egypt because we went to do a story on him because he had an Arabian Egyptian horse farm. And so we went there and, you know, covered that kind of story. So I traveled to every continent except for Antarctica. After or even a magazine, I started working for NBC and I was working for NBC News. I worked there for a while, then came to New York to help start a network called America's Talking and America's Talking was embassy's answer to CNN because at the time, CNN was the only network that had 24 hour was the only 24 hour cable network. So at America's Talking, we were none of us knew when we went there what show we were going to produce. So we go we go there, we come to New York and we're sitting in this room and Roger Ailes was the head of the network at that particular time. And so we're sitting in this room and he hands us an envelope and they start playing the Mission Impossible music. You know, the Mission Impossible music. Yeah, they'll go, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. And so we open the envelope and we find out at that particular time what host we were having and what kind of show we were going to produce. So I got aging, Carol, an aging Carol. Who is the advice columnist for Elle magazine? She's been in the news a lot lately for other reasons. We took her column, advice column and we brought it to television. And we were the first show of the network to be nominated for Cable Ace Award. This is before cable and regular television merged. It was the Emmy Awards. We were cable ACE Awards. And the reason we were nominated for cable ACE Awards is because Jane had found a lump in her breast. And she was terrified. And the only reason that she would go and have the surgery is if we kind of followed her along. And so we ended up doing a story about what breasts mean to women and what it means to lose your breast as a as a woman. Did that mean that you're less feminine now? Anyway, we got this award. Here we are, this little itty bitty show of like five people and we're out in Hollywood on the red carpet. It was such a surreal moment. But NBC decided they were going to turn America's talking into what is now MSNBC. I opted not to stay on for news because I wanted to branch out from news. So I decided to leave and I went to Fox and worked for a little show called Fox after breakfast and Fox after breakfast. Was this really a wacky show in a six to five hundred square foot apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City? And it was the first show that kind of constituted the outdoor concerts, curbside concerts. Now, the Today Show is doing them on. Good Morning America is doing them. And if you add Tom Bergeron and Laurie Hubbert were the co-hosts at that particular time. Now, that show eventually was canceled. And then I went to The View and I was one of the original producers of The View at that time, it was Barbara Walters. Joy Bay Hard. Meredith Vieira. Star Jones. And Debbie Matenopoulos.
[00:09:58] I left The View. To start pure joy, wellness. So that's kind of the trajectory of my career.
[00:10:07] That makes sense to me a lot more so now. I wasn't I wasn't read in on The View. A lot of your other points I had my my crew had done some good digging. But from what I understand of pure joy, wellness, that transition makes a lot of sense to me. Did it to you then when you did it?
[00:10:25] Oh, it it it it kind of did.
[00:10:28] But tell me why it makes sense to you. OK.
[00:10:31] So I am an early I watched the first season of The View and this guy goes into my own testimony about coming up. The reason why I endeavored this podcast in the beginning was I, growing up as a young, strong feminist woman, was most moved and taught by most people like me hearing other women stories. Any stories. Kalinda's to astrophysicists? Yes, women sharing their stories and their platform and their voice was. It was like food and water to me growing up. And I did not have an oppressive household. I came up as a third generation feminist, but I couldn't get enough of it. It was I was, you know, the the society I grew up in deprived me on such a regular basis. So the view was something that I was anticipating as it was coming out. But for me, the. OK. So it's changed a lot.
[00:11:22] Get into any of that. And I won't fall.
[00:11:26] And I like I like shows I think shows that don't change die, you know. And I don't mind metamorphosis and that that's a whole different conversation. But the first season of The View for me. It kind of endeavored to do Oprah roundtable. Like I felt like there was like they were going to bring in. And I liked the kind of even though there were different levels within it, they had these multiple host formats. And I liked the idea of like this roundtable of women all coming together and having this conversation. And for me, it felt like, first of all, flagship of its kind, seeing I was the lieu of women in front of me instead of just a token one or two. Yes. Monumental the audience as well. You know, all of these like this this female kingdom moment. And then also it felt like even though the first season was a little bit more shy about how they coded it, they were really going to start talking about women like not women and men, but like women and issues that women dealt with.
[00:12:27] Yeah, I think I think the concept of the show was there were the opinions from five different generations.
[00:12:35] So from 20 on. What the reason that I.
[00:12:44] Decided to get out of television, which was twofold. One, I felt like there was a bigger purpose for me, right? As a child, I grew up in a family where I like to say, if you ever saw the movie Sixth Sense and they say, I see dead people. I grew up, I saw sick people and everyone around me was sick and my family. And it scared the crap out of me. And I really did not want to become sick. So as a child, I studied everything that I could find on exercise and nutrition and anything, any reason that I could prevent being sick like. Like my family. And so I got into television and went on to television. And while I liked it.
[00:13:35] I didn't love it.
[00:13:37] And what I found television to be for me, for me, I found it to be a very.
[00:13:47] I do want to say an abusive business, because I. I'm all about women taking care of themselves. And I just saw television being anti that. Yeah. Unhealthy food, long hours. You work yourself to the grind. You're only as good as the last thing you produce. You could have produced like a thousand award winning shows, but you missing one little thing on and you're berated. And I just was just like, this is just too much. So I was always drawn to a bigger, bigger passion and I really felt it was important for me.
[00:14:22] To teach women. The importance of taking care of yourself and also putting yourself first.
[00:14:32] I saw many, many, many, many women who who put their husbands first, who put everybody above themselves and they always put themselves last.
[00:14:42] And the generation that I grew up in, that was kind of the thing you were brought up to. You know, you you are the spouse that does the cooking and the cleaning. And I can tell you how to iron a shirt like crazy. My mom taught me how was shirt without creases in him and all that kind of. But I used to tell her, I said, what? I'm not going to be that, you know, I'm not going to be that woman who is going to be ironing her husband's shirts. But at the same time, I also grew up on the cost of the women's movement where it's like burn your bra. Hell, no, we're not going to do this anymore. And so I kind of saw both sides. So when I decided I was going to leave television, it's really interesting because I did not have a plan.
[00:15:27] I do not have a plan. I just was like, this is my passion and I'm just going to leave and I'm just going to do it. And that's what I did.
[00:15:39] So when you say you didn't have a plan, did you have an idea?
[00:15:42] Well, I mean, I knew I knew it. You've done it right? Well, I was going to be health and wellness related, and I knew it was going to be helping women get healthy. But in terms of what I know about business now and coming, you know, having a business plan and, you know, all that kind of stuff. No, that's not how I started. I just decided, OK, I'm going to do this. And my friends helped me. They're kind of like, OK, you can work with me. And through that, people would see me and I just organically started gathering a clientele and only until recently. To be perfectly honest, we only until recently did I really think about in terms of, OK, how am I going to market this business? I get a whole clientele without any marketing, without any funding, without any anything. Just by pure passion, believing and knowing that what I had and what I am here to do was much bigger than me.
[00:16:43] And it was so important for me, for women to understand their worth, their importance. Why why health was so important that without your health, your quality of life suffers. You know, I watch women and my family's quality of life suffer because they do not have their health. I didn't want any other woman to have to fall through that path if I could help it, if I could reach them, if I could talk to them.
[00:17:10] Yeah. And I think the quality of health is packaged in other ways. It's appearing beautiful, being fashionable. It's never for the happiness of love. But what I hear is that they I was thinking about it.
[00:17:22] So interesting. I would think about this. And I went back through my health journey and in my 20s, it was all about me being really, really fat. And how then can I be? And I did all these drastic things where I took like diet pills and I wouldn't eat because that was that was, you know, beauty, healthy, whatever. In my thirties. I learned weight training. That totally changed my body. But the eating thing was still not there in my forties, I started gathering and. OK. You got to do cardiovascular work. You got to do strength training. You got to look at what you're eating. And then I hit my 50s and I went through menopause and all hell broke loose. Everything changed when I went through menopause. So what I tell women.
[00:18:16] I see women who are exercise like my thousand hours a day. I don't. Their bodies look great.
[00:18:26] I don't necessarily consider them healthy, though. No. You know, I look at health. It's a balance of a lot of different things. You know, yes, you have to, you know, eat well. Yes. Movement is really, really important. Yes. You need to get sleep. Yes. You need to drink water. But you know what? You need to balance it all out. You know, it's like with anything if you're all here and all they are, you know, it's all about. I don't consider that very, very healthy. You know, you need to have connection with with your friends and your family and, ah, have some kind of passion for some type of cause or some kind of purpose. You know, all of those things for me encompass what it means to be healthy. And that's what I tried to teach my clients. So where I am right now, and the reason I like to focus on women over 50 is because as I started with my training and working with women and naturally I started hearing certain things, women started saying to me that we're over 50. They feel invisible. The health and wellness industry catered to women in their 20s, in their 30s and left this whole demographic out. Yeah, they were going through things like menopause. They were going they were empty nesters. Some of them were going through divorces because their husbands were, you know, leaving them for younger, younger women.
[00:19:48] They had careers. And now because of the shift in the way, you know, the corporate structure is, you know, they didn't want to pay them the amount of money that they were paying them when they could get somebody younger to do it for less amount of money. They were having hard times finding jobs and interviewing with people that were younger than they were and had less experience than they were. And so here are these all of these women. Who had no voice. Who had no place to go. Who felt invisible? Who felt. Work with. And I'm like, hey, we need to do something about that. Yeah.
[00:20:25] And so that's where the business is now focusing on that.
[00:20:29] OK, I want to get into for every of my earlier audience. I will cover it. Per your request.
[00:20:37] So when do you feel if there wasn't a confirmed time. When do you feel that pure wellness joy was launched? Did you take funding, including your own? Did you bootstrap? Did you have founders? Did it launch with a Web site or just a Rolodex of clients?
[00:20:55] So there was pure joy, wellness. That went for many years and then there was. OK, now I'm turning this into a business. OK, so in 2014 I decided, OK, this is really a bona fide business. This isn't something I'm doing on this side. This is a bona fide business. So the first thing I did was figure out the branding of the business. You know what that was going to be? What was going to be my brand promise? What? And so I came up with this thing. Well, one of the things I thought, you know, like what sets me apart from everybody else that's out there because there's so many health and wellness scorers out there.
[00:21:39] And the thing that set me apart was a thing that in the beginning I didn't want to say. And that was my age.
[00:21:50] So the thing that in the beginning, it was like, don't say that you're this age because that means that you're old. I said, No, no, no. That's my calling card. So what's my brand promise? My brand promise is.
[00:22:05] Be young because I'm like, I'm 63, so young. You know? Yeah, strong. I really want women to be strong in all areas of their life. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, to be strong and sexy. Every woman wants to still feel like, you know, hey, I have it. So the brand promise will be young, strong and sexy for life.
[00:22:28] That was it. So I started off by building the Web site.
[00:22:35] You were gonna say something? Yeah. Well, I was. I mean, I know I think you're going to get there with it. So I'm gonna hold back. Which I'm not sure I'm doing. And I just wonder this at a young, strong and sexy.
[00:22:50] And that cell into me, you're gonna you're gonna climb into the website. But first of all, did you decide that you were only going to work with people over 50. Up front? Was that something that was naturally happening in the kind of informal phase of, I think, wellness?
[00:23:09] I think that sort of naturally happened in the ongoing phase now. I still work with with women that are in their 20s and in their thirties. And they're but the bulk of my clients now are women that are 50 plus. One of the reasons that is, is because I'm over 50. So I think there is this parallel of what kinds of things that I have experienced that they're experiencing. What have I gone through that they may be going through now that I can share that experience with them?
[00:23:38] You know, I'm a mom on a grand mom.
[00:23:42] I've gone through menopause. I've lost my husband. You know, all of these things. I've switched careers, you know, all of these things that they are experiencing.
[00:23:52] I share my as well. So I I felt like they could relate to where I was and I could relate to them. So it was a natural sort of thing. The other thing is that I'm really good at listening. And they really needed to talk. They really needed to talk. And they really needed a place where they could settle and feel like that. There was someone there that was listening to them because, again, society says once you're past 40.
[00:24:22] You know, basically, what's your worth?
[00:24:24] And so and a lot of women were feeling that way. And I'm saying, hey, I'm 63 and I haven't fallen apart. I'm sixty three and I'm still doing this. I'm 63. I'm still doing that. The other thing is to say that I'm 63 and say out loud and proud and not be like I'm 64. I don't tell anybody, you know. And say to women, be proud of your age. Be proud of the life that you've led. Be proud of that and not shrink down from it. So that's how that came about.
[00:24:56] Absolutely. Well, and I mean, if yeah. Those two things equate for me as an academic as coming from a family of academia. You know, if you've published 52 works and have three pages in your twenty seven.
[00:25:09] Yeah. You're kind of a sevi. You're not really you're not taken that seriously. You'd better be about seventy five instead.
[00:25:16] Yeah. I equate age with a lot of brevity that I want as well in this world. You know, if you meet a 22 year old that has four kids, it's like, ah, you've had kind of half life. You meet a 40 year old that hasn't seen a so those types of things kind of way out. And I think it's a reminder of that. It's weird in my Mother's Day, this, you know, this compliment that you look so much younger for your age. Why and why are those things attached to beauty and requestion ing? Those things I think are good. I'm curious how you tie in the sexy part, because I've haven't looked a great deal into menopause and I've had a lot of conversations with women organically when they talk about their career. They talk about menopause either approaching, going through or having gone through it. It plays into one's life in all aspects, regardless of how much we think we can hide or taught to hide from it. But the sexy aspect is something that a lot of women talk about when they when they have a successful outcome with menopause, even before experiencing a reclaiming, it feels that they have this relationship where they felt like they were kind of detached from it because the conversation, they couldn't have an honest dialog with their environment. And so they couldn't be sexy within that. And I'm wondering how you include that into your philosophical structure with your clients, because it seems like a more difficult aspect with women over 50.
[00:26:33] Well, it is. I struggled with that when I first went through menopause and my body went nuts, literally. It went nuts. And I went to my doctor and I said, what the hell is going on? She goes, Oh, you're going through menopause. You know, just, you know, exercise more and eat less. Well, I'm like, have you let me know what exercises work or better? And so then she said, you just have to deal with it.
[00:27:02] And literally my libido. Was non-existent. So I'm with this man who's nine years older than me.
[00:27:14] And we're not having sex anymore because I just don't. I don't have the desire. And so he's coming to me and he's saying, you know, what's going on? You know, you're not attracted to me. I was afraid to tell him that I was going through menopause because I'm kind of like, he's gonna think I'm old now. He's nine years older than me. And I'm worried about him thinking that I'm old. So. So I had to figure out how to get my body back and feel like myself again so that I could feel like I could have a normal sex life and I can have a normal relationship and not all of those kinds of thing. And that's where I talk about the sexy part. I think that every woman still wants to feel like that there the desire of their man's eye or the desire of their partners eye or whatever. They still want to feel like that they're a woman in every sense of in every sense of what that means. I remember the first time I realized my mom was a woman. And I was like, just, you know, that she had those wants and desires and all those kinds of things. So the sexy part I say, is recapturing yourself and feeling good and wanting to still have that part of your life. Like it hasn't gone away.
[00:28:35] Absolutely. And I think it's it's a crucial and integral one that a lot of people important look.
[00:28:41] Yeah. It's really it's really, really important, you know, the sexual beings of us. It's also important. And it's good for your health.
[00:28:49] Yes, it is. Health is really old. Optimal health is happiness.
[00:28:53] And from all different aspects, I agree. And I think that you do a good job of incorporating that. I want to pivot and go back to your Web site development and what? Because I think that so here is my assumption. And this comes from 20 years of, you know, sitting around Silicon Valley and kind of bird's eye view with very little invested myself just watching people develop businesses for 20 years. And my interest in it is that there seems to be a great deal of conversation that people have with their brand when they go into develop a Web site that they hadn't had before. He has even as tincture based as someone can think that they are, they've gotten to the core axiomatic principles of what their brand is when they go to develop a Web site. It is completely reanalyzed there because it's a it's a visual process. It's a noncommunist captive verbally. It's a you know, the whole platform changes like with any art that imposes on the other senses. And so I want to know if that happened for you, if it kind of fine tuned what your brand was as you start to develop the Web site and indeed take it from this informal to the formal brand. And if so, what things came out of that time period?
[00:30:01] The Web site is always evolving as the brand evolves. It will change probably in a couple of months somewhat to be more engaging towards my specific audience as I become more clear, as I became more clear on what it was that my target audience was. The Web site changes should go towards that. Like right now, the Web site talks about what we offer, but it doesn't really go into the specifics of where I'm really catering towards women over 50. I really want to change this conversation about aging. I really want to build this community, a community where women can, you know, meet up with other like minded women that aren't afraid, that are brave, to have real conversations about issues that that concern them the other day. I had everything going on in the country right now. I've started my community on Facebook. And one of the members says, hey, you know, I want to have a conversation about about race and racism, you know?
[00:31:11] And so people are thinking, well, why would I have a conversation about race and racism on the health and wellness, you know, lifestyle brand? Well, you know, that creates a lot of stress. I am a black woman. So I get a bunch of women together, half black, half or white. We have the zooming we have this intense conversation around race. I was really terrified that having to be honest with you, because I'm like, is that a hot button topic? But I'm glad that I did, because here are these women that are part of this community, the pure joy of this community. They want to have dialogs about different things. They're not women who are just you know, I'm interested in having a bikini body in six weeks. That's not who we are. That's not it. These are women who have live lives. They're interested in what's happening in the country. They're interested in politics. They're interested and in climate change if they want to have conversations about it. So we frame it in terms of how does it affect your health? You know, the race issue where the black women, how does it create stress in your life? Yeah, no, how does that how do you manage that climate change? How is that affecting you? Is it are you having clean drinking water? How is this affecting your life? And if it's affecting you, what can we do about it? So, you know, when when when I look at other brands that are health and wellness brands, they're dealing with things. And maybe it's because we're older, you know, because I'm older, because I have a broader interest. And I know that these women do, too, that our brains are not just a one dimensional, but they are mohie dimensional. We have lots of different interests. But all of these things do affect our well-being and it always comes back to that.
[00:33:01] Absolutely.
[00:33:02] I think I'll go back to answer your question. The Web site changes as the brand gets clear on the focus of who our target audience is and what it is that they actually want.
[00:33:19] Yeah, and as it changes, as you fulfill that, the dialog between those two. Absolutely. That should be ever changing.
[00:33:25] I'm as powerful as we talked about a little bit about The View. You know, I think that brands that don't change don't represent real people behind them. It's toilet paper. It's very rare. You know, it's not it's not a real thing, especially in service industry. People get into conversations about wanting strongholds and, you know, the Coca-Cola emblem and all of these things. And I'm like, if it's not changing and constantly being evaluated, it's not video walls because as human beings, we evolve.
[00:33:54] Like what I felt about health and wellness in my 20s is certainly not how I see it in my 60s. I mean, I can see elements of that. You know, I talk about like in my 20s, Jane Fonda was really big and everybody was following Jane Fonda. But Jane Fonda didn't talk about that. She was Billy Mick. No, that would have been a real conversation. Yeah. So everybody's trying to get to where Jane Fonda is without having all that information. Right. So would you say that was really healthy? It could have been if we would have had that real conversation, but we weren't having that conversation around me. Right. And how many women trying to.
[00:34:40] Buy into this norm that we're supposed to be a certain size and everything we did to try to fit into that size. You know, no one was really talking about that until Karen Carpenter died of anorexia. It was like, what? What is that? You know what I mean? So it's it's like. What I want to do is before we get to that, wait, let's have those conversations like how are how do you feel about your body? Yeah. You know, I know how I. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I look at my body and I ask. You know, I hate this, I hate this, I hate that. Other times I like up and I look at my my I'm like, I'm gorgeous. Yeah. You know, but there are a lot of women out there that are.
[00:35:28] Don't like the way that they look. I have women in their 70s bringing me pictures of what they look like when they were 18. And I'm going, really? This is this is your goal? Yeah. They're really framing it for them that, you know, when I look at my body when I was 18, yeah, it was great.
[00:35:49] I would look horrible like that right now.
[00:35:53] And you'd have to, Benjamin. I mean, the whole concept of looking how one wasn't emotionally. Do you really want your emotional state at 18?
[00:36:00] That's absurd. Thinking about people are thinking about that. That's that's that's the missing link. So it's like tying it all together. This is why I'm saying looking at the whole picture. Most people fragmented and they go, OK. Their body, they want this part, but they're not making that connection to be, you know. Well, what does that mean exactly? Like I've had I've had women say things to me and I'm going I don't I'm not connecting to that. And then I meet their moms and then I get it. So it's a complicated we're complicated, you know, creatures. And the the big thing for me, it's about acceptance. You know, getting to the point where. OK. You may not have thighs that are size zero, but your thighs are OK because they're moving you, they're taking you around in the world and you're getting around in that. And that's a beautiful thing.
[00:36:59] Yes, absolutely. I'm curious throughout that, because you have kind of this legacy. You started off informally and then went to this formal aspect. You have your hands in all the different parts from the business aspect to the emotional, the spiritual, the physical health. What are some of the trends that you've seen change over the past decade regarding all of those things, particularly in women, about 50? Like, have you seen a growth of like four interest, for example, interest in menopause or things of that nature change over the past 10 years? Like what? How is that industry and that presented?
[00:37:34] Are you're just now starting to talk about menopause? I think I saw there was an article that Vogue magazine published a couple of months ago about menopause being the new frontier in women's health and was like, oh, my God, people are starting to talk about menopause. I see other practitioners starting to really engage in that conversation around menopause, which I think is a really, really good thing, because when I went through menopause, no one wants to talk about it. Right. There was no one wanted to talk about. It was like, hush hush, you know, secret thing you don't you don't talk about. I think the more we open up or we expand and we talk about those experiences, like what is that like? What does that mean? Menopause to me in the beginning, it was very scary. Now I see it as an opportunity, you know, one I don't have to have a period a word.
[00:38:27] Thank goodness I have to go through that. But it kind of frees me up a little bit, you know, so I think it's important for us to start having that conversation. And when it starts going mainstream, you know, that the shift is the shift is coming. When Vogue starts publishing articles about menopause, you know that that shift is starting to come as more women are becoming older. You see things like people are starting to embrace being fifty, like the celebrities are starting to embrace being 50. Jennifer Lopez just turned 50. And there was a big thing like, oh, Jay loads turning 50. And so that becomes the conversation that getting older is not a bad thing. And a lot of celebrities are kind of embracing that. But then that brings on a different kind of conversation because women are going, well, I don't I'm over 50, but I don't look like that. Right. And and am I supposed to look like that at 50? And I feel like a failure because I don't look like that at 50. And what I say to that is, you know, we have to stop comparing ourselves to other women. Women are we're our worst critics. We have to go here. This is where I am and embrace where I am and be the best that I can be. And one of my favorite books is before agreements. And in the four agreements, there's this one thing that says always do your best.
[00:39:59] Knowing that your best is going to be different from day to day. But as long as you do your best. That's that's all you can ask for. And so if I'm trying to compare myself to Jennifer Lopez, I'm going to feel horrible. I'm going to fail.
[00:40:18] But if I only compare myself to me, then I'm kicking ass, I'm rocking it, you know? And so.
[00:40:26] I think that's bad.
[00:40:28] That's kind of where we are. So as the celebrities start embracing 50 then and they look a certain way. That brings on a whole other thing for women who aren't celebrities on what the expectation is supposed to be.
[00:40:43] And I'm saying. The expectation is all on ourselves.
[00:40:48] Yeah. And I've seen a trend speaking to that.
[00:40:50] I think that this is from my own personal testimony, but I'm 43 and I felt like when I started having children, I started relatively young because in the Bay Area, the average age from women starting to have children was in their thirties and I was 27. So as I was cutting that that curve, I it wasn't spoken about. There was very few baby clothes to choose from. Everything was incredibly sexist, everything. And then it felt like within seven years all of Hollywood started having children and the market just boomed.
[00:41:21] You can get organic diapers this year. It was this like a wakin strollers used to be really almost barbaric. And now our light and gorgeous machinery, like practically jogging coffee. Yeah. So the celebrities decide they're come up. Then it's like, oh, OK. No, it's OK. So I feel like female issues are slowly.
[00:41:43] And with that, what happens? Everyone starts studying birth, IVF. All of the new forms of family start to become talked about and engaged within accepted.
[00:41:53] And so I'm hoping that that comes with menopause as well, because we don't really study talk about menopause, you know, and that's the issue and all their lot talking about menopause, we need funding as well.
[00:42:05] No one studied it. You know, I had an M.D. go on record with me saying you don't understand. Like, we haven't even studied the female heart. We study a group of hearts largely are white men. And we say that's what we know about the human heart.
[00:42:20] There is like there are fundamental differences between male bodies.
[00:42:24] I know that I've spoken to women that were very angry. And they say, like when a man reaches a certain age, they develop that low blue pill so they could still get out and insurance pays for it. There is nothing for women in that regard. Absolutely nothing. So we have to learn how to figure that out on our own. But that's still the difference between men and women. As long as men are, like, empowered, they're thinking about themselves. They're not. We'll find out. Well, do we have to get there? We're where we are.
[00:42:59] And we're a campaign, you and I, we're gonna get there and all of us. And I'm wondering, moving forward with the future, because you've had this growth and you had this natural growth in the beginning and then you implement it and you're very good about being tangible and changing everything up and really listening to the community and your goals. Do you make goals for like the next one to three years? Is that the way that you look at the future and your company and your work? And if so, what are some of those now?
[00:43:26] Some of my goals are expanding the community. I really want to do sort of like a talk series, you know, have a place where women can come and have these conversations, bring in speakers and do that kind of thing. I also want to compile the Pure Joy Wellness Center. And that center encompasses all the things that, sure, joy wellness is so there would be an auditorium where we would have those conversations. There would be a test kitchen where you bring in different chefs and you teach how to cook, you know, healthy meals and also talk about nutrition and that kind of thing. They would also be, you know, a training floor for movement exercise, but also for mobility, because as women get older, more mobility and flexibility and balance is really, really crucially important. So there would be an emphasis on that. Then we have I'm I'm off or pampering and spa services and things like that, too. So I believe and, you know, face shows and the sizes and all those things to take care of yourself as well as, you know, meditation. We'd had sleep pods where women can come in in the middle of day where they just want to get away from their husbands or their kids or whatever. They can come in and take a nap, that sort of thing. And and like acupuncture and stuff like that. So it would be a place where women could come together. They can kind of hang out if they just want to hang out or they can participate and in all of those other things. So I believe in there being a very heavy educational component to it. This is why I would want to bring in speakers and again, have a place where women can come and they can really talk. I think there is this hunger for women to be able to talk about what they're feeling, what they are experiencing, what they're going through. And so that they don't feel alone and they don't feel invisible. Yes. Samantha and I really do want to change the conversation about aging being a bad thing.
[00:45:36] Yeah, I do, too.
[00:45:38] I think our key to happiness and because I know that it's happened is one after like we we it's going to happen. You can lie about it.
[00:45:47] But but but but we're still in denial of it. And I just want women to embrace it. And and, you know, and I'm gonna do that part to try to make that happen. Now, people say to me, oh, well, you can say that because you look the way that you look like you're 60 something, but you don't look like you. And this is all true. But. I've been working on it for a very, very long time, and a big part of that hasn't been my exterior. It's been my interior. Working on my from the inside out because I believe that the help from it. From the inside out. Not from the outside.
[00:46:23] Absolutely. Where will it be? The center. Which state. But the flagship will.
[00:46:29] I'm hoping for it to be in Manhattan. I've already done the renderings for it and all of that. My goal ultimately, if it works in Manhattan, we would kind of have it in different cities around the country. And it would be. Yeah. So it'll be a place where women over 50 to come to beautiful all mine.
[00:46:48] Bring here. San Diego or L.A.. I'll go for it. You bet. Yeah. Well we're not at we're out of time. We're off to my final question. And for those of you that follow the series, it's some of your favorites as well.
[00:46:59] And everyone knows it's one of my favorite things to ask. But I'm wondering, particularly with the most recent state of affairs, both with the pandemic as well as the social uprising and unease and things like that happening right now, I want all of those things considered in your answer, because I don't think it's fair to kind of do it in a vacuum. But if you are to social safe social distance tomorrow in a park or a garden somewhere and a young woman or female identified non binary individual, anyone other than kind of assist Ginger White man walked up to you tomorrow and said, listen, I'm so glad I found you. I've got this incredible background. I started off. I you know, I thought I was gonna go into radio. I went into television. I had this prolific career. I spanned multiple different enterprises. I flagship did a great deal of things. And then one day I up and on the heels of a great success, turned around and started my own wellness journey. And I'm just getting ready to kind of launch in and do that now. What are the top three pieces of advice you would give that individual knowing what you know now?
[00:48:04] Number one, make sure you're passionate about it. Because being an entrepreneur and starting a business is really, really hard.
[00:48:15] So you have to have that passion for when things because there are times you're going to wonder, you know, maybe I should go out and get a real job. This is so so passion is really, really important to.
[00:48:28] Find a mentor. Surround yourself with.
[00:48:33] Either other entrepreneurs or a mentor or someone who has walked that path. Because it's a lonely place to be. It helps when you have other people that understand what you're experiencing because your your friends really don't share you. It's a you need people that that understand. And the last thing that I would piece of advice that I would give is as long as you believe.
[00:49:03] That's possible, and you believe in yourself, then go for it, girl. Just go for it.
[00:49:09] Absolutely. I completely concur. And I think that people can hear those kinds of words and not really resonate with it. Believing is is everything.
[00:49:18] It's really I mean, every cult founder knew that.
[00:49:21] I don't know. I can't figure it out. You know, there are some people who probably have some evil, crazy things. Yes. All right. So I have no one.
[00:49:29] Make sure you're passionate about it. No. To find a mentor, you need a community. You need people to advise you as well. And number three, as long as you believe in it, go for it.
[00:49:37] Girl, that's so perfect.
[00:49:40] I love it. Run out. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. We're out of time. I'm devastated. I could talk with you all afternoon.
[00:49:47] You're wonderful.
[00:49:48] Absolutely. And for everyone listening. This has been Renata Joy speaking with us. She's the founder, nutrition expert and personal trainer. You can find out more about all of her endeavors and her Web site.
[00:49:59] W w w dot. Pure joy, wellness dot com.
[00:50:03] Thank you so much for giving me and us your time today. And until we speak again next time, remember to always bet on yourself. Slaínte.
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Speaking with Sheena Russell; Founder and CEO of Made with Local
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Today I am speaking with Sheena Russell. Sheena is founder & CEO of Made with Local, a health snacks company based in Nova Scotia. What started as a farmer's market table in 2012 has grown into a nationally-distributed brand known for delicious Real Food Bars and their innovative social-impact production model. You can find Made with Local's products in 1000 retailers all across Canada!
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with founder and CEO of Made with Local Sheena Russell, made with Local as a health snacks company based in Nova Scotia. Key points addressed where Sheena's launch of Made with Local and the ethos behind the company culture and brand. We also discussed her incredible efforts to keep made with local, sustainable, responsible, made locally with local ingredients and filled with good intentions and love. Stay tuned for my awesome chat with Sheena Russell.
[00:00:33] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status for industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:31] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today we are sitting down with Sheena Russell. Sheena is the founder and CEO of Made with Local. You can find out more about it and our conversation about everything we impact today at w w w dot made local made with local dot s.a. Welcome, Sheena.
[00:01:51] Thank you so much.
[00:01:52] Thanks for coming on. I'm excited to talk to you and unpack everything for everyone listening. And we'll give you a brief bio on Sheena before I start peppering her with questions. But prior to that roadmap for today's podcast, just so for those of you that are new, can kind of follow along and realize we're we're kind of pulling all of our inquiries from we'll first look at unpacking Sheena's academic and professional background and then we'll turn straight to unpacking made with local and we'll first look at the logistics and then turn some of our inquiry towards the ethos and the philosophy behind the company, which it pulls heavily for it being a B corp and things of that nature. And then we'll turn towards goals and plans that Sheena has built for herself and made with local moving forward for the next one to three years. This is an area that has changed greatly with a lot of people with the most recent COVID 19 pandemic upon us. And we'll wrap everything up with goals, advice that Tina may have for those of you who are looking to get involved, maybe emulate some of her success and OK. So before we get started, a quick bio on Sina Sina. Russell is founder and CEO of Made with Local, a health snacks company based in Nova Scotia. What started as a farmer's market table in 2012 has grown into a nationally distributed brand known for delicious real food bars and their innovative social impact production model. You can find made with locals products in a thousand retailers across all across Canada. So again, their website is w w w dot made with local dot C eight. So she not prior to R before we jump in to kind of unpacking meat with local and I love it. I like, I really kind of climb through all of the aspects of your website and I can't wait to kind of pepper you with questions.
[00:03:33] But before we get to that, I was hoping you could kind of describe your academic and professional background prior to launching the company.
[00:03:42] Sure. So I grew up on PTI. Born and raised, rural Prince Edward Island girl. And out of high school, I did one year at the University of Prince Edward Island and then recognize that it kind of felt like high school 2.0.
[00:03:58] Now, I got home Hometown University and applied to go to Dalhousie University here in Halifax and got accepted. Which is really exciting. So I was one of the first people in my pretty large extended family to go off island for post-secondary. So I got accepted into DOWL to do a Bachelor of Science at the Focus and Environmental Sustainability.
[00:04:21] So that was perfectly in line with, you know, my passion as even as a kid. Now, I've always been really sustainability and, you know, environmentally conscious minded even as a 10 year old. So that was always my path. Right. I ended up at DILE to do a bachelors degree and then pretty quickly moved into a great job for a young person, especially after having just graduated. And a government municipal position doing education for the City of Halifax's recycling program. So it was kind of like felt like the jackpot at the time. And and. Yeah.
[00:05:03] So that was, that was the job that I was working when I started. Made with local as a side hustle.
[00:05:10] Nice.
[00:05:11] So I'm wondering, even though you know, and we'll get into the ethos and how much that really does unite with this, like recycling education program that sounds like you just started with. But it seems like entrepreneurship is not just necessarily a progression will step in a lot of people's lives. It's this kind of different trait that one has to have starting to farmer's markets. We've talked to a couple of companies over the past three years that have really gotten their footing in farmers markets. And I think it's an area that a lot of people who start with a product based startup don't realize is like this wonderful nesting place, at least in the United States. I don't know how much it varies in Canada. I have not meant to a Canadian farmer's market, but it's this great place where you get this culmination of testing for immediate feedback. You know, there's there's all of these very quick things that larger companies or companies that don't have access to their consumers or their customers get at a farmer's market. And I'm wondering, when you started, did you intend on going beyond the farmer's market or were did you just want to bring a product to farmers market?
[00:06:16] Yeah, I completely agree with you in that the farmers markets are like the ultimate CPG incubator. Right. And I can't imagine having started a brand without having the invaluable experience of being a farmer's market table for two years. Because, you know, you get to test your pricing.
[00:06:34] You get to literally see your customers with your own two eyeballs and hear how you know, what questions they have about the product and what flavors they tend to gravitate to and how many they buy at a time. And it's just like so juicy. But at the time, I didn't realize what was happening. Right. It's all hindsight for me. At the time, I was 100 percent was just like, this is just this fun little thing that I'm doing on the side. And it felt it felt, you know, really comfortable. Right. And it was definitely tons of work, but not having. Not ever imagining that I was going to be an entrepreneur as a kid. And the young adults like I could be, I really just couldn't even fathom how far this company has gone. And those really early days, like every step we took from the farmer's market, get into wholesale relationships with cafes and some small grocery stores. Every single step felt monumental. And yeah, and, you know, it still feels like that sometimes today, even being in a thousand stores. Coast to coast. But the intention was not right off the get go to get huge. But now I look back and I cherish those farmer's market days because they just were so important.
[00:07:50] Yeah. One and probably for the better. I think that the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs and I do love dreaming big and so there is that other side of it. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, particularly of Latter Day, like, they tend to be like, you know, it's it's a one point two million gross.
[00:08:06] You know, it's this these great, huge dreams. But it seems like everything underneath that is depressing or less then. So this idea that you had that you were just kind of going to keep going in and celebrating every small success along the way sounds like a happier route, maybe definitely more Canadian. I have a new Canadian friends that sound very like I like that kind of optimism.
[00:08:28] I want to start unpacking it now, since we've kind of hinted all around it and we've got into made with local. So my interest in it. So in the beginning, for all the like nerdy little founders listening out there, can you get into the logistics of the when was it founded?
[00:08:43] And did you have co-founders? Did you bootstrap? Did you take funding and and what products did you launch with?
[00:08:50] Sure. So we started in 2012. And when I say we I co-founded the company with a friend at the time. She was also working for the municipality of Halifax here. So we were work buddies that turned into co-founders. And she she became pregnant with her first child pretty early on in the business. So and I at that point had been fully bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. So pretty early on in the life of the company, I started moving more into like a primary founder role. We launched at the Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market with four Skewes while editing call excuse the time for flavors of bars that were made with local ingredients.
[00:09:27] So Canadian grown oats, honey, from a local supplier, Canadian made nut and seed butters, cranberries, blueberries, just as many ingredients as we could sourced from our region as possible. And this was really at the beginning of the locavore movement. Farmer's markets were becoming much more of a mainstream thing and it was just perfect timing.
[00:09:49] And in 2012, there also weren't the endless number of energy and protein bars that exist today. Like now, it's arguably the most competitive category within natural food, but then it wasn't. So we really did stand out and we continued to stand out in that way and that we've retained those local suppliers. Many of the same suppliers we started with the farmer's market are still our suppliers today, and we've grown their businesses because of our growth and also our process. Our manufacturing process is is still very high touch and and has this incredible social impact, ripple effect that happens because we partner with social enterprises to run our production bakeries. So that happened in twenty fourteen. We started with our social enterprise model that allowed us to scale the company because as most founders know, when you're in the food products space, at a certain point you're gonna have to hand off your manufacturing to somebody else.
[00:10:51] And it feels scary as hell. But it's the only way that you can get out of the weeds and start growing your company. And that's what we did in 2012. But instead of nursery in 2014, but instead of going to, you know, a big Copac or a big manufacturing plant, we created this beautiful relationship with an organization here in Nova Scotia that employs folks who have barriers to the mainstream workforce.
[00:11:17] And they started making our for us and that, you know, six years ago they were making a few hundred birds a week and now they're doing, you know, 10, 20 times that. And we've scaled them up as our growth has continued on. And it's just been a really beautiful partnership.
[00:11:36] Yeah. And I want to make this clear for everyone listening, because I think some of these terms can be glossed over. And to understand it from a manufacturing or from a founding point of view is crucial. And you have a video on your website, Riverlands Listening, that actually does a very good job.
[00:11:49] I'm very into visual interpretation of things like that, and this does a very good job of that as well. So for those of you listening, we want to hit it, hit that video up on made with local thought s.A.
[00:11:58] But the every one of your products is handmade. It's this is not a machine made process, you know. And I think that that's crucial to understand as you start to ramp things up and as you've. Source. I think immediately when people go to outsourcing, they go to this this industry manufacturing warehouse machine made moment. You know, that's just what happens. And it's about quality control. Is it does it taste the same? And you have this very obvious link with the ethos and the philosophy of your company that it needs to be, you know, human to and touched human intended. Your website states love, period, nourish, period, community, period. And it seems like, you know, that you have stretched and and really fought to maintain those three core aspects. And that's even through like the making and packaging of these things in the communities that you've outsourced to do that with.
[00:12:52] And I think it's kind of crucial. I want to get into. I am curious because this is a realm that I've never worked with or funded or done anything like that. Food is something I tend to stay away from. I study it from afar, you know, and I eat very well. But as far as making it in mass quantities, it be terrifying for me.
[00:13:11] I want to know how when you started creating the products. There's so many things to consider, right? There is there is not just the source that it comes from sustainability, agriculture, things that you've obviously considered, you know, being a B corp and things like that. But what about allergies? How did you select flavors? What made you even go into bars? Did you. Were you just making these on the side, like for Fonzie's with your, you know, the recycling and education program? Like, how did all of it come to be as to that was the product that you were going to do?
[00:13:41] Right. So I you know, I look back to 2012 when we first started and all of it was just like so pure, you know, and like innocent, like, I never imagined that I'd be running, you know, a seven figure company today.
[00:13:57] Like, it's just, you know, and so the intentions in the beginning were just to create this really beautiful products using as many local ingredients as we could.
[00:14:08] And another time, I wasn't thinking about, oh, you know, we should do raw bars instead of baked because that will be easier to scale, you know, or we should use this type of sweetener instead of this because, you know, it'll work better in equipment like it was never like it was none of that conscious thought in the beginning, because that just really wasn't on my radar. But, you know, when it comes to, you know, allergens and key features like the differentiator for us in the early days and it continues to be so is that we're using, like, literal food, no foods like ingredients. So things like oats, peanut butter, honey, cranberries or Fairtrade organic dark chocolate, real ingredients with no preservatives. No, no weird shit. Yeah. And in that, you know, we weren't. And local. Right. Handmade. Local and real life. These are the things that we're going to differentiate us from the countless number of bars that sit on store shelves that are literally like kind of like a paste that squeezed out of a tube and then just enrobed and some like weird chocolate esq kind of layer. That is the vast majority of protein and energy bars that you're seeing in most grocery grocery store shelves. And there's a reason why there's so little variation in the flavor and texture of so many bars because they're all kind of squeezed on the same extruder machines. And you have to reverse engineer your formulations to work with the equipment. The the way that's mass manufacturing is means that you are restricted to a certain type of texture and and an ingredient stack. And we've just kind of, you know, so screwed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:51] You have to you they all taste. I have to say, I'm probably a little jaded. I'm not a fan of like over ninety nine percent of the bars out there. I feel like they actually got worse after the launch. And then you had labels and different things.
[00:16:06] And I don't want to call people out, even the billionaires out there, because I'm not looking to hate on anyone, but even the ones with simple names, you know? And that seemed like like like honest or whatever, like all of these different. I taste them and they don't they don't taste like anything that was on the label. I don't taste any of the nuts in there. I don't taste any chocolate. I don't taste. It's just like sludge. I think you have the most perfect description for what I taste. It sound it feels like something that came out of a tube like astronauts. It literally is known to live. Yeah. Like it was not intended to be like fresh from my organic farmhouse table. It was more like.
[00:16:44] Yeah, that type of.
[00:16:46] That's what the experience feels like. And I think you train yourself to like it, like people who are very in dubah as I have some girlfriends that are extreme athletes and it's a lot like that gel that they eat when they do their extreme running, it's kind of slam them. It's not an experience of food. It's different from eating. It's like and that's kind of how they've trained themselves to have it.
[00:17:05] And so I agree with that. And I think what you're saying is right, that's the manufacturing piece that I got from your site that I was kind of educated into very briefly without putting identifying key factors to that. We did a really good job of just pointing out what you do and then bringing out an awareness in the viewer of what obviously is not being done with other people. You know, this is handmade hand touched. Like, it's very clear that that would make a difference between yours and someone else's. And to that end, I'm wondering, it sounds like your growth has been like organic, but also just like a rag you've been piloting. But kind of as you fly like this like pathway. And I'm wondering, because it has been this, you know, your growth has been this crazy trajectory from farmers markets to now being available everywhere else. And then you have covered, you know, pandemic reaches back into like online. First of all, are you available anywhere internationally? And is that on your horizon or sites? And is it possible, given that your product is so handcrafted?
[00:18:08] Sure, yeah. We are available online to ship internationally. So folks in the US can order through our e-commerce shop and we'll ship to your door. Easy peasy. And we are, you know, be extensive expansion into the US is a couple of years out for us at this point.
[00:18:27] My my intention with this company is to to go deep with the retailers here in Canada first because it's a sustainable way of doing business. And, you know, there's two ways to grow a company. You either sell more in the same stores or you sell into more stores. Right. And ideally, you're doing both. But what you see in a lot of a lot of situations is distribution, growth, but not depth at retail. And we excel at nourishing relationships with retailers like our independent health food stores. We we love that. You know, we work very closely with them. We make sure the staff have have snacks to sample and that they really understand and experience the brand. And we it just feels so much more rich as a brand and as a company. And for me as a founder, to know that we're focusing on really doing really well at the stores that we're in before we take on the next, you know, whatever B chain or next market. So that's our kind of two year goal for now, is to continue to to enrich the relationships here in Canada. But, you know, as has happened many times in our in our past so far, you're speaking to our growth trajectory. We can pull the long and not that we're not pushing the pace. Of course we are. But there's lots of things that have come up for us where we've been pulled into the market by by incredible demand for a product. So, yeah, yeah. We'll we'll see what happens. The intention for now, though, is, is to be a Canadian brand for the next two years in terms of retail. But e-commerce is fair game. Yeah.
[00:20:07] I mean, you say yeah. And you have a lot of like sage wisdom. And I wonder where did you learn as you go? Did you enter? Were you ever in an incubator?
[00:20:15] Where did you capture all these little nuggets? You're like. You know, we want to develop this really solid home base. Like, that's the number one thing that investor would advise, you know, unless they were trying to grow you too quickly and bankrupt you like it's to develop that really sturdy root threshold so that, you know, you have this base to kind of always return to. Where did you. Did you take business courses? Because, I mean, as as awesome as the education for recycling, sounds like it would have tied into that and things of that nature. It feels like you've acquired a great deal more of education. So what I'm curious about is, did you ever go through an incubator or any type of, you know, a like minded system in Canada or any take any business classes? Do you have a mentor or you lean on anything like that?
[00:21:00] So I've never been part of an incubator. I've never taken a business class in university or college, and I read a lot of books and I've had coaching, I've invested in coaching for myself consistently throughout the course of my entrepreneurial journey. You know, I've been at this for for a while. You know, eight years is not nothing, especially, you know, in this day and age where you see businesses kind of come out of the gates guns blazing and, you know, two or three years after already looking to get acquired. We're we're again, like you mentioned earlier on, this kind of organic path. And I think, you know, this this desire to form rich relationships is.
[00:21:45] Is the culture of made with local as well? Right, it's who I am as a person. You know, we have rich relationships within our company with our suppliers like love nourished community. That's the community piece. Right? You don't want to just blast in a load in two, you know, hundreds of stores at a time and then just be like, cool p.c. Good luck with those. That doesn't work. You have to nurture nourish those relationships.
[00:22:06] And so it's just really it's the cultural alignment that that we make sure touches all points of me with OKL, not just among our team members or suppliers, but to the retail space as well. Again, no, I read books, listen to a lot of podcasts and have had some incredible coaches over the course of my business. So that's cool.
[00:22:29] Yeah, business coaching, mentorship. Like, I think that that good old fashioned reading, dear someone returned to it. And I'm curious, I got on your site and I saw the bar.
[00:22:41] And then you also have bar mixes and. And I'm wondering when the advent of those came along. I can't believe it. It seems weird. I would think that in the beginning you just had the bars. But I may perhaps I'm wrong and I would like to know when the bar mixes came along. And with that, if there is a lake coming along, another sibling with another product, or if you're just going to stay with those two for right now.
[00:23:03] Yeah, the bar mix has been something that we've had in kind of like a beta format for now, about two years. My came up with the idea standing in my kitchen at home. I was making bars at home like two and a half years ago. Don't ask me why. I'm like I've thousands of boxes in my office, but for some reason I was at home making bars. And I was just thinking, like, how annoying is this that I need to have all these little bags of different seeds and little odds and ends and it's just like annoying and convenient, right? What if I could literally just dump a pouch into a bowl and make it like a cake mix and make granola bars? So that was my my aha moment home and I could do that. So we launched our real food bar mix back in twenty eighteen. And it was it was challenging to get off the ground. You know, it's a total first a market like there is no other granola bar mix in Canada at that point anywhere. And just even then, looking back, you know, the packaging wasn't descriptive enough. It wasn't educational enough. The name Real Food Bar Mix was like way too much of a mouthful because it's not really descriptive either, because people are like, just what is this thing? So we we iterated on that several times. And then just this year, in the last couple of months, I said, you know what, like we've learned so much through these various iterations of the real food bar mix, like let's let's bring this baby together and completely fresh design of the packaging that includes photography of the finished product. We rebranded it to be called Granola Bar Mix because that's much more palatable. And also happened to launch it in retail during a time when the Nielsen data was telling us that baking categories and grocery stores were experiencing like seven X growth. So we just launched it into a chain of grocery stores here in Canada called Loblaws. They have about 500 stores across Canada.
[00:25:00] And, you know, we all know Cauvery your era, we were seeing the baking aisles ransacked. Right. So we have this super awesome, perfected, tried and tested product that's now on the market are granola bar mix and ready for people to.
[00:25:16] To enjoy so auspicious that time. I mean. Unbelievable. That's amazing. And I do like I did. I saw it and I thought, this is. I like that. Like, I wonder why I hadn't seen more of it. And it seems more trustworthy when you're bought with your bars. Like, I don't the sludge we were talking about, the toothpaste, you know, the stuff that's coming out of you can't get that in. It's like baking mix format because then it would just be a whole bunch of different weird piece like fake powder Slainte. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Of we to your product.
[00:25:48] That granola bar mix is literally like the one tenth batch size of our real of our real food bars. Like it is our recipe. We are teaching you how to make real food bars in your own kitchen. And that's something where. So corvids had also shut down our product, a real food bar production facility here in Nova Scotia on March 13. So three months ago, we lost all ability to make our packaged bars. And it was terrifying because our grocery purchase orders were going through the roof and we were just like, you know, hands up and like, we don't have anything to sell you.
[00:26:21] But again, just being able to to really put the turbo charge behind the granola bar Viks and for it to pick up the slack, so to speak, in that time was was pretty amazing. You know, we were joking like we can't make our bars for you, but you can make our bars for yourself now. So we have granola of our mixes. It was an amazing launch and it's ongoing still. It's really exciting.
[00:26:43] It is. It's clever. And it's it's necessary. It's cool that you came up with it. Just doing in your kitchen. I like the idea of. I thought about it because I am by no means a Martha Stewart, but I have a very creative brain where I would say it's a very like wandering brain.
[00:26:58] And so when I saw it, I was like, oh, you could make them into any shape you wanted. You could do like a cube. You could do like a a bunny mold. You could do like anything you wanted with when you're making your own bars, you know, you can play around with different visual aspects that I thought are like it's creative, it's cool and absolutely back into, like making it one zone.
[00:27:18] Like the one thing that that's the end. You're absolutely right. Like, we we talked to people and have an entire recipes section on our Web site so people can look up recipes with fun and creative ways to make the granola bar mix super easy to make like a little energy balls. We've had people around Christmas time do that with gingerbread man. Like there's just so many fun ways to play with it.
[00:27:40] And my favorite thing about the granola bar, Max, aside from it just being an amazing product, is, again, we've really embedded embedded our values right in the and the execution of this product in that, you know, when we're making our bars, we know that there's literally well baked into them because we have these social enterprise partnerships. But when you buy our granola bar mix to make it at home, you're going to see on the preparation instructions on the back, there's step number four, which includes a little note about taking a 10 second pause to send vibes of love and gratitude and jam bars.
[00:28:17] And then you just move on into pressing them into the pan and putting them in the oven. So we inspire our customers in that moment when they're making our bars to take a little moment to be like, OK, you know what this is? This is real food made by real people and I'm grateful for it. And just a little cute prompts. Take a little pause.
[00:28:36] So I love that I ended up loving. I love it, too. And I don't think it like I would go beyond saying it's cute. Like I used to think I was the only one I would say I can taste. Angry food in restaurants. But I just felt like I could taste food where someone was just like enough with that, you know? And I was very sensitive to it. And I thought I was being frilly and stupid and silly and stupid, just a little silly. And I was Fletching Top Chef. And Tom Colicchio was like that. Food tastes angry. And I was like validated. This amazing American chef is like, now I can taste the anger in it.
[00:29:10] And it's like this hastiness with he was describing even the shock value of the vegetable and things like that. But it's the antithesis or it validates what you're saying with this intention. I think every wonderful chef from, you know, the home chef to the greatest Michelin star would say like that intention and the accuracy and the emotion flowing into it, you can absolutely. It's it's an art. You can feel it. You can interpret it as a person eating it later on. So I love that you put that in there. I think that's. I'm wondering with goals, we talked about how you want to, like, really root into your Canadian stronghold before you start branching too far out. But outside of that. Have you looked at your next one to three years because of the cove? It. You know, it started it must have re solidified this conversation with you where you're like, I'm really glad we launched the, you know, the mixes and things like that. Do you have any other goals on the next one to three year horizon? Aside from like cementing into Canada with product development or anything like that, you're going to look at or are you just going to stay on the path that you've kind of described?
[00:30:16] Yeah, I'm really excited to continue on with developing some more products around this baking mix line. I've joked to some of my team about wanting to dig in on this concept of like millennial baking mixes. Right, like the baking category. It's super dusty.
[00:30:33] And it's just it needs to be there needs to be some reinvigoration in the baking mix category because, you know, man, I know for sure that I can use some kitchen hacks in my life. And I love and I'm very committed to feeding my family simple nourishing foods. But like, sometimes you just different. You need help. You need to act. So I feel very strongly about creating some products that align and extend that product line as a granola bar is doing. So from an R&D perspective, that's where my heart is kind of leading me right now. And then, you know, other things that we're working on, on the manufacturing and our social impact side include creating a second production hub in central Canada and Ontario. And that's something that definitely bucks the trend also of large scale manufacturers, where it's all about centralizing and efficiencies. And, you know, it's just these massive food systems that are efficiency over everything. Right. We've seen through covered that these massive corporate archaic food systems get fucked up whenever things go sideways. Right. Like, I look at all these meat packing plants and these huge conglomerates, like as soon as there's something really dire happening in the world, they can't they're not agile enough to respond. And who is picking up the slack for that? All the small farmers and food producers and entrepreneurs who can pop up an online shop and a night on Shopify and all of a sudden can service a community or can bring their entire farmer's market online and are now delivering thousands of boxes through community every week. Like it's just incredible, the agility of small scale, decentralized food systems. And that's something that we are using as our model to scale our production, because, you know, people hear our story and they hear about how our bars are handmade. And the number one thing I get asked is, well, how are you going to scale that? And it's which is a valid question. And we have right. We've we've successfully scaled the business to this point. And instead of, you know, deciding, OK, you know, we've gotten to here, but now it's time to finally, you know, take the big leap to full automation and a centralized plant. We are going to build out a second production hub with the model that we've created here in Atlantic Canada on the East Coast and replicate it with local farmers, local food producers and a social enterprise in central Canada that will service more customers in that market. So, you know, creating some redundancy, which is a good thing if you have a tight system and engaging more farmers and food producers and also reducing our climate footprint because you're not shipping ingredients and finished product criss crossing, you know, coast to coast, which is what we're currently doing.
[00:33:27] So that is something that we're working on right now. And we've identified a really amazing social enterprise partner in Toronto that is turning to our new partner. Yeah.
[00:33:36] And then really, I will be Vancouver after that, do you think?
[00:33:39] Yeah. Yeah. That's the plan.
[00:33:41] Nice. That's. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that idea. And I think you're completely right. You know, I think that it's and it is antithetical, but so is your entire company.
[00:33:52] And it's working out beautifully. You know, so I say stay the course. Thank you.
[00:33:57] Absolutely. Well, our time is running out and we're to one of my favorite pieces of the podcast, which is I get to describe to you, if you were at a safe, socially distanced place in a Gardiner Park tomorrow and a young woman or a female identified or non binary individual and anyone pretty much other than as cis gendered white man walked up to you and said, listen, Gina, I I've I've done my schooling.
[00:34:25] I've I've had kind of like this wonderful dream job. I was educating people and recycling environmental issues. But I mean I mean, I launched this great startup. I I'm not sure exactly where it's headed. I would take it to the farmer's markets. There's a good situation. I feel pretty confident in it. What are the top three pieces of advice you would give that individual knowing what you know now?
[00:34:47] So no one would be like mentorship and coaching is so credit has been critical to my journey. So I very early on was lucky enough to receive some funding that I could invest in. And a pretty high powered coach who is now one of my very close friend of mine. It doesn't have to be like that. It can be, you know, coffee with a mentor. But but finding mentorship is, I think, one of the most critical things because it can be really lonely. You know, entrepreneurship can feel very isolating and which is a crazy thing to say in this day and age where, of course, there's podcasts and Instagram and like more information than any of us really need.
[00:35:25] But it can still feel isolating. And I know I've been through it myself. So I would say mentorship is huge. What else? You know, if we're talking about a product, race based product, I would say like have a have a production plan in place for understanding how eventually you or you will hand off your production when it's time for you to, you know, work on your business instead of in your business.
[00:35:52] Doesn't have to be something that happens right away. And I actually suggest to any entrepreneurs and food that you yourself are very invested and very involved in manufacturing in the early days because then you intimately know your process and the costs associated with that and then how to create and invest in efficiencies. So that would be, you know, the succession plan out of your own. Manufacturing is one thing I would say is really critical. And, you know, just being unabashedly your own brand, you know, keeping your blinders on to an extent on what other people are doing and just double down on what makes you you and not being scared to use a voice in your brand that you haven't seen anywhere else because that will be your superpower.
[00:36:37] Yeah, absolutely. And it has been yours, at least, I think. And it really is. I want people to get on your website because I really like I think people will agree with me. I always think people will agree with me after I've explained myself.
[00:36:49] But I think in this case, they really well, when they hit your website and kind of get a feel for the video and understanding, you guys do a great deal about talking about the ethos of your company. OK. Back to the advice I have. Mentorship and coaching is crucial in the beginning. Number one. Number two, I have a production succession plan in place for the future handoff. But be very aware of the process as you begin it yourself. Number three, be unabashedly proud of your own brand and aware. I love than I am.
[00:37:21] I think those three are so crucial and they speak to think people really get lost sometimes in like these like, you know, make sure your funding's down, like all of these kind of crazy logistical things that for your story were possibly less crucial. And also, like you lose the the the beauty and, you know, and the three, the love nourishing community, your three on your Web site, you know, in that. And with that, you lose the taste and you lose the flavor and you lose all of those things along the way.
[00:37:52] And with your three with mentorship and production succession and really being unabashedly proud of your own brand and and siccing with it is crucial. I love the story. I think they're perfect. And they describe you. You emulate them perfectly. Shanna, we're out of time today.
[00:38:09] But I want to say thank you so much for meeting up with us and talking and walking us through made with local. I know you guys are really busy, and I do appreciate your time.
[00:38:17] Thanks. This has been so fun.
[00:38:19] Absolutely. And for everyone listening, we've been talking with Sheena Russell. She is the founder and CEO of Made with Local. You can find out more on her website that I have touted nonstop. It is w w w dot made with local. Dot. You can order stuff online at very least get on and check out the company's story. I frequently speak with a lot of companies I love, but I rarely meet with one that I can really get behind their ethos. And this is one of them. So I do appreciate it. And for everyone listening today, I appreciate you and your time.
[00:38:48] And until we speak again next time. Remember to stay safe, eat well and always bet on yourself. Slainte.
Thursday Aug 27, 2020
Thursday Aug 27, 2020
Today I am speaking with Ariel Garten. Ariel is probably one of the most interesting people you will meet. She is a psychotherapist, Neuroscientist, mom, former fashion designer, and the female founder and visionary of an amazing and highly successful tech start-up Muse. Muse tracks your brain during meditation to give you real-time feedback on your meditation, guiding you into the “zone” and solving the problem most of us have when starting a meditation practice. Muse lets you know when you are doing it right. When Ariel is not reading brains (literally) or investing in, inspiring and advising other start-ups and women in biz, you can find her on stages across the world, from TED to MIT to SXSW. She inspires people to understand that they can accomplish anything they want by learning what goes on in their own mind. Ariel is also the co-host of the Untangle Podcast.
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:07] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series will contain interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their perspective. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts, regardless of age, status or industry. We intend to transparently investigate the evolving global dialog regarding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad by hosting these stories and conversations. We aim to contribute to the changing platform and representation of these individuals for the future. If you're enjoying this podcast series, be sure to check out our subsequent series called Roundtable with Patricia Kathleen, where we talk with a panel of guests regarding key topics that arise in these individual interviews. You can subscribe to all of our podcast series on iTunes, Stitcher or Pod Bean, as well as our Web site. Patricia Kathleen, dot com. And you can also contact me directly via this Web site or through my media Web site. Wild dot agency. That's w i. L. D e dot agency. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:30] My time will be off to the races.
[00:01:38] I said your name right? Ariel, Garten.
[00:01:40] You did. You're actually like the only person ever. So great job.
[00:01:45] I wonder if my little mermaid like, The Little Mermaid with Ariel. Is that how people like to say it?
[00:01:52] People say air-i-el. I say you say r-e-el, which is the right way, but nobody ever does it.
[00:01:57] So, yay, I'm glad. OK.
[00:02:00] Make sure. Yes. Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today I am sitting down with Ariel Garten. Ariel is the founder of Muse, which is a tech startup, a device that gives you Real-Time feedback during and post meditation. You can locate it online at w w w dot. Choose News dot com. Welcome, Ariel.
[00:02:23] Thank you, Patricia.
[00:02:23] It is a joy to be here. I am excited to climb through what you're doing. I'm really excited to have you on today for everyone listening. I will read a brief bio on Ariel.
[00:02:32] Before I do that, though, a quick roadmap of today's podcast will follow the trajectory that all of those in these series do. Namely, we will first unpack oriels academic and brief professional life so that we have a basis of a platform understanding where she came to developing news. Then we will look at unpacking news and the device. What it does, the data that it captures will also get into the nuts and bolts of her enterprise, which is the who, what, when, where, why and how. For all of you entrepreneurs out there, you guys like to hear about founders ship funding. We'll get into all of those logistics and then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at the ethos and kind of the philosophy behind the company. Then we will look towards goals that Orio might have towards the next one to three years. How she's kind of reconceptualizing goals, though, that dialog has changed for a lot of you. Given the recent pandemic, and it's interesting to hear for all of us about that change, and then we will wrap everything up with advice that RTL might have for those of you who want to get involved in what she's doing and perhaps emulate some of her career success. So a quick bio on Orio before I start peppering her with questions. Ariel Garten is probably one of the most interesting people you will meet. She is a psychotherapist, neuroscientist's mom, former fashion designer, and the female founder and visionary of an amazing and highly successful tech startup Muse. News tracks your brain during meditation to give you real time feedback on your meditation, guiding you into the zone and solving problem most of us have when starting a meditation practice. Mused, Let's you know when you are doing it right? When Orio is not reading brains literally or investing in inspiring and advising other tech startups and women and bears, you can find her on stages across the world, from Ted to M.I.T. to south by Southwest. She inspires people to understand that they can accomplish anything they want by learning what goes on in their own mind. Oriol is also the co-host of the Untangled podcast. So Orio, I want to climb through all of that. You have such a prolific history and and what isn't in your bio that I do know from our research is that you have even more history on the back end before Muse was in two realities. I'm hoping right now you can unpack some of your professional and academic background to develop like your own personal platform.
[00:04:57] Sure. So my whole life, I've been kind of split between arts and sciences when I was a teenager in high school. I excelled at the arts. I excelled at sciences. I had a job in a research lab doing embryonic stem stem cell research on knockout mice in the 90s. And I also had a tiny clothing line that I sold on consignment to stores in downtown Toronto where I lived. So I was always kind of parlaying between the world of art and the world of science. And back in the 90s, people would say, well, you can't be an artist and a scientist. You have to choose. You can't do both. And when I went to school, when I went to university, I chose to go for neuroscience because I felt like if you went to arts, you couldn't go back into the sciences yet to continue on with the sciences and then keep doing the arts on the side. So in university, I studied neuroscience at the University of Toronto. I also had an art gallery that I ran. And then as soon as I graduated, I opened a clothing store in basically the front of my house. I was just like, OK, I need to do this clothing thing because I've done the science thing for four years. Yeah. I then continued to work in research labs part time while I ran a clothing line that what I was selling across North America and a store retail store in downtown Toronto. All of this being entirely unable to sew. So it's like I'll just start a clothing line, even though I've no idea how to sew. But I love fashion and I can figure it out. And my family business was very, very small scale real estate. So I was also helping out the family business at the same time. So I was had these multiple career trajectories going simultaneously. I was fascinated by all of them and always kind of felt like I could do what ever I put my mind to.
[00:06:44] So in my mid 20s, I started collaborating with Dr. Steve Mann. He's one of the inventors, the wearable computer. And he had an early brain computer interface system. I began working in his laboratory, working on basically concerts that you made with your mind. These artistic endeavors with real scientific information from the brain and really started to marry. My art and science approached the world. And from there, I became inspired to take this technology that was letting you literally interact with the world directly with your brain.
[00:07:18] It was a brain computer interface and try to take it to market and create my own business. And that's how myself and my two co-founders, Chris Emeny and Trevor Coleman, created news.
[00:07:29] Fantastic.
[00:07:30] So you have two co-founders that kind of dropped us into the next question that I have, which is the top three tiers of logistics, which is co-founders funding and year you launched.
[00:07:43] So I started working in Steve's lab in 2000 to 2002, 2003. And in those early days, we were creating concerts using this early brain computer interface system. And I began collaborating at that point with Chris. Amy. Chris was Steve's master's student. And he was just the most brilliant engineer you could ever meet. And also had an incredible understanding about humanity and art and the soul. And so as I started to think that this technology could come out of the lab, I got together with him as the CTO, the company. And Trevor Coleman, who is my boyfriend at the Times, best friend. And the three of us founded Muz. But before founding Muse, we spent many years playing around and Trevor's basement and in Steve's laboratory, figuring out what this technology could do. And so probably 2007, we really agreed that, yes, reforming a startup. In 2009, we incorporated and had our first big project, which was at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. We the first funding that we had came in twenty twelve I reck. I was the CEO of the company and recognized that we would need to raise funds. We got paid for Olympics projects. We were able to bootstrap for many years. And when we started to raise funding, I went out first to New York that Boston, San Francisco to raise funds and ultimately probably. Or first. Yeah. First round is four million dollars from FEC in New York. And our very first investor was actually Chad Menteng, who was at that point. Google's jolly good fellow. He was the guy who started Google's meditation program. Also search inside yourself. Since then, yes, it was amazing. So since then, we've raised I personally raised eighteen point two million dollars as the CEO of the company from, I guess, 2012 until 2015. In 2015, I stepped down from maternity leave and brought in another CEO. And to date, the company's raised probably around 30 million dollars.
[00:09:54] Wow, that is amazing. What round are you guys on? Moving into Runcie. Brilliant. That's amazing.
[00:10:01] I mean, and it's it's an incredible. I think there are a lot of people that get to a certain position and phase out, particularly with that kind of longevity in a career. You know, you can kind of very few founders anymore kind of staying on and hanging around past that point. I'm wondering, in the beginning when you said you were going to I don't know if it was trade shows or in 2009 or 2012 when you started kind of getting out there. What was the gradual change of the product or was there a story like how did it you know, companies grow with funding traditionally on a lot of different levels. But I'm interested in before we describe the product of it as it is now, the device.
[00:10:44] What was the original product or device like?
[00:10:48] So this is pretty funny. Originally, we started with a technology and a technology that was in search of a solution. So we had this device that let you put an electrode on the back of your head. And by focusing or relaxing, you could change some element, sound, light, etc.. So initially we thought we were going to go after a thought controlled computing. As you shifted your brain state, it would allow you to control the lighting in a room or control, you know, a cursor on a computer screen. And we did a lot of demos and experiences showing people that you could literally shift your brain state and make music or brighten a light. The project that we did at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics let people in Vancouver control the lights on the and tower Canadian prime buildings and Niagara Falls with their brain from across the country. So we had tens of thousands of people literally interacting with the lighting on these massive icons with their mind. So when we came off the Olympics, we were on a high. And we're like, we can do anything we want. Yeah, we just succeeded at the Olympics. And so we went on to try to thought control everything. We made like a thought controlled toaster and which was really stupid. But it was a fun trick and a thought controlled beer tab, which is awesome to have at Christmas parties, but not really useful in real life. You'd focus on it. It would pour. You would relax or clarity. It would stop pouring. We made all sorts of great thought control, things like, you know, trying to grasp. But what is it that we're really going to do with this? And that's when we sort of had that light bulb moment that it wasn't about letting people control the world outside then. It was about the fact that this technology could actually show you what was going on in your own mind and give you real time feedback on your brain. Because as we were teaching people to focus and relax so that they could, you know, make a light bulb go brighter. What we're really doing was taking these internal states that were intangible and making them tangible and visible, showing you when you're focused, showing you when you're relaxed and doing so, essentially giving you BuYeo or neurofeedback to teach your brain and body to do that more. And that's when we kind of had the recognition that this was going to be most useful for the world as a meditation tool, because meditation is this amazing activity that is so powerful for you. But most people don't really know how to do it, and they're not good at it, per say, because you don't know what's going on in your mind. And there's nobody showing you what's going on in your mind and telling you when you're in the right zone and when you're not. And we have technology that could really do that.
[00:13:22] Well, there is a year when I feel like there was a year, it may have been a couple of years or a day, but where Silicon Valley began leading this or Silicon Valley like areas started leading this charge where they had meditation rooms developed in Google, you know, places like that where it felt like it took meditation out of this Eastern philosophy yogi realm and placed it like squarely into like productivity. Corporate America like this is now like a break room moment. And I'm wondering when your device when it switched over into, like, focusing on the meditation and inward movements and recognition moment and how well that paralleled with you think the industry kind of accepting this new form of meditation being just as important for productivity and things like that in the workplace as a break.
[00:14:14] We were so lucky. We completely followed that curve. So, as I mentioned, our first investor in 2012 was Chad Menteng, the guy who literally made Google's meditation program before 2012 when somebody would ask us what we were building. We felt like we had to say it was a cognitive trainer and are really like our early das. Our early pitches all had pictures of brains with like big muscles on them. Going like this is going to make your mind strong. It'll help you focus. And then people would do the demo. And on rare occasions I would be asked, like, is this meditation? And we'd be like, Do you like meditation? Yes, I meditate. I would be like, it is meditation. Just don't tell anyone. I was like, you know, we whispered background conversation. And then over time, I think for us, what I really kind of count is the tipping point was meditation being on the cover of Time magazine. It was around 2013. There was a photo of a woman on the cover of Time magazine, and Tom got in trouble because it was a very, you know, white woman doing this. But she was sitting there with his eyes closed and the lotus position meditating. And that, to me, really marked the moment when the world took notice. And all of a sudden you had big CEOs meditating and athletes meditating and celebrities talking about it. And then the you know, first the kind of vanguard corporate meditators like Google and then the slow trickle of every company having a meditation program that they'd offer to their staff. And we just, by chance, were entirely in tune with that wave and were able to capitalize on it from 2012 moving forward.
[00:15:53] Yeah, that auspicious. Right.
[00:15:56] I mean, I think it would have done well without. But like I said, when you mentioned into cognitive training and things like that, I think that's esoteric and confusing as well. You know, and it's funny when you have to fight against terms like that just to kind of make sure that you're alleviating communication gaps or bigotries. It's fun to kind of look at those things. So now let's get into the device. Let's talk about its structure. I mean, for everyone who's looking to get a picture of it, obviously, if you jump on w choose News.com, you're going gonna get some of that. But if you can kind of describe for everyone listening right now briefly where it sits, what it looks like and how it outlook as an experience as a user. I come to your house. I sit down. We put this thing on me. What's going on?
[00:16:40] So news is basically like a Fitbit for your brain. So it's a slim little headband that sits on your head and it tracks your brain activity during meditation and gives you Real-Time feedback to know when you're focused and when your mind is wandering. So you slip on the news. It would connect to an app on your phone. You'd plug in your headphones. And then as you meditated, you'd be able to hear the sound of your mind through guiding sounds. And the metaphor we use is your mind is like the weather. So when you're thinking or distracted, you hear it as stormy and as you come to quite focused attention, it quiets the storm. So you're getting Real-Time feedback, letting you know when your mind is wandering and killing you back into the meditation zone and then reinforcing you for staying there, reinforcing you to that state of calm.
[00:17:27] Then after the fact, you get data, charts, graphs, scores, things that show you what your brain was doing moment to moment and really help you track the progress of your practice.
[00:17:37] Yeah, it is exactly like a Fitbit, and it's exciting.
[00:17:40] I mean, it it almost just lends to I don't know if it's the human mind or the American human mind or the entrepreneurial mind, but I already when you pitch it that way or when you describe it, I start thinking, oh, I get into training it more. I have areas I want to tap into immediately. It's like this, you know, nice little green pill that I could, like, do something and take and like focus and train or even like a muscle and focus on that. Do you find that people immediately, the people who congregate towards the idea are those that want to tap into certain resources in their brains most quickly? Or is it just the curiosity?
[00:18:17] A people come from both directions. So, you know, people who are performance oriented obviously love the performance aspect of it that you can measure and through measure improving.
[00:18:26] There are people who are very experienced meditators and they come at this more from the perspective of being a consciousness explore, of understanding the process of the mind, of being able to hone the observation of the mind through a new year on their internal state. So there's lots of different experiences that people get out of it. The app is completely customizable, so you can either use the Real-Time feedback during your experience or you can turn off all the feedback and just after the fact, see what your brain was doing through your own silent meditation. We also started with the brain and now have sensors for the heart, the breath and the body so you can hear the sound of your heart like the beating of a drum and be able to track its increases and decreases and really learn your heart's rhythms. You can find stillness in your body and track your movement. There's breath patterns and now there's also hundreds and hundreds of guided meditations that you can use along with the device to actually track your brain, heart, breath and body during your guided meditations as well.
[00:19:29] And are those developed by ever in in collaboration with your company Muse?
[00:19:34] Yeah. So we have dozens of top teachers from all around the world who build meditations for performance, stress, anxiety. We have a cancer collection that males currently testing for finding morning joy for sleep and on and on.
[00:19:50] Nice. What is so I want to you have a topic that you've addressed in the past and I kind of want you to enumerate on for our audience. What is the the mindset of an entrepreneur like it?
[00:20:03] How does that relate to the collection of the data that you've looked at? That's a fascinating question.
[00:20:10] So the mindset of an entrepreneur is different than the mindset of an average individual. And the mindset of an entrepreneur has to be one that A is willing to handle a whole lot of risk and B, is able to have emotional flexibility because being an entrepreneur, you have so many demands on you. And a lot of those are emotional demands. You know, you're you're at the high of success. You're at the low of your business crashing or at the moment before funding. So you need to be able to navigate all those smoothly. And you are typically not afraid in the same ways that other people are afraid that this goes back to the risk piece. So one of the things that I noticed in myself with the mindset of an entrepreneur was that I really believed I would be able to accomplish what ever I wanted. And, you know, occasionally I'd have thoughts that came and come into my mind, like we all do it, like, oh, that's gonna be too hard. You're not good enough. You know, somebody will judge you for it. But I was very easily able to overcome those thoughts. Was variable easily. Is able to say you're just a thought. That doesn't matter. I'm not going to let that hold me back. And I was able to move out into the world without really being held back by a fear that something wouldn't work without being held back by the thoughts in my own mind. I think that's a that's a fundamental feature of entrepreneurs, because the people who aren't entrepreneurs are the people who have a great idea and then just get overwhelmed by the thought of doing it, get bogged down in the feelings that it will work, get held back and not knowing what to do next.
[00:21:47] Yeah. And it doesn't work. We'll just move with it.
[00:21:49] So how would an entrepreneur. Most quickly utilize Muse? What would be, you think, one of the first steps of using it? Is it just articulating areas that they could tap into through meditation?
[00:22:01] Or what do you think, given, you know, the dialog you just created about the entrepreneurial personality and mindset? How would it be most beneficial or collaborated with using Muse right off the bat?
[00:22:14] Sure. So we have literally hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs that use Muse and top CEOs and CEOs will buy them for, you know, their top executives and muse together. So it's it's something that entrepreneurs have really tapped into. So one of the reasons is the idea that the thoughts in your head don't need to govern how you live. So most of us just have the thoughts in our head and we assume that they're supposed to be there, like this isn't gonna work out or I'm not good enough for, you know, this is gonna be too big for me. We just assume that that's the truth, because that's a thought in your head. As an entrepreneur, you learn how to move your mind away from those thoughts and overcome them by taking actions. And that's a big part of what Muse teaches you to do, Muse, cuz you when your thoughts are wandering and then gives you a cue to say, hey, you don't need to follow that thought, you can come back and focus on the thing in front of you.
[00:23:04] You can move your mind away from that and focus instead on something you care about or the task in front of you. So it helps you shift into that mindstate of possibility and lets you move out of your negative thoughts and into a neutral space. And it also significantly increases your productivity because every time your thoughts wander away, that's a little procrastination. That's a micro distraction. With music, get very good at saying like no distraction, back to focus, distraction, back to focus. And then on the emotional piece. What meditation teaches you to do is to ride your emotions without getting bogged down by them. So you might, you know, have just lost a big deal and you might, you know, feel a lot of emotion in your body. And what you learned to do with meditation is to observe that emotion, you know, see the sensations and feel the sensations that it brings in your body without ramping the thought cycle in your head. It's not like, oh, my God, I just lost that deal. Oh, my God, I feel terrible. Whoa, that's really bad. And cycle cycle down with meditation. You. You observe the sensations without getting sucked into the feelings in a way that's going to drag you down with a negative feedback loop between thought, feeling, thought, feeling, thoughts, feeling. So as an entrepreneur, it becomes an incredibly valuable tool to ride through the lows and to let yourself relish the highs.
[00:24:25] And I'm interested about the feedback that it provides through the app and collect collecting that data. What would the average user do with that feedback? Does it help growth? I mean, if you have the cues on obviously there should be some in the moment change and, you know, change of of mental status. But I'm wondering, accumulating that feedback. Do you see how quickly you are able to return to focus and meditation? What what would someone apply the feedback to and what all is collected?
[00:24:57] Sure.
[00:24:58] So when you do a mind meditation, what you're looking at is the times when your mind has wandered in the times and you return and. We celebrate the ability to notice that your mind has wandered and to return back to a place of focused attention and calm.
[00:25:15] We also reinforce and celebrate staying in that calm spot. So it's OK that your mind wanders all of our minds. Do what you want to do. Say like, nope, I'm going to come back to focus. And what you end up seeing over time is a graph that starts looking really jagged. You've got lots of distractions and your mind's bouncing all over the place. And as you progress in your practice, that curve gets smoother and smoother and lower and lower as you're spending more and more time and focus calm. So when you look back to your graphs, you can identify the things that trigger you, the kinds of thoughts that distract you or the sounds that might have been in your environments. You can become very aware of your internal state and you can also really acutely see your progress over time. And you can then also see, you know, OK, this was a great meditation today. What was I doing differently? What what does this mean? How do I reinforced this in the future? Yeah. With the heart meditation you're actually seeing when your heart rate increases and decreases moment by moment and you're learning the things that will get your heart to speed up, things that cause you stress and anxiety and things that get your heart to slow down. And by seeing the patterns of your heart, you learn the kind of relaxation and breathing patterns that get you into optimal HRB and an optimal, beautiful, smooth, sinusoidal rhythm and allow you to relax your body more effectively.
[00:26:33] Right. And when you say that I picture things that I'm more than likely, everyone listening has had glimpses into either the Buddhist monk that was hooked up to electrodes that kept, you know, his heart rate at a certain way, or the deep sea diver who she was, you know, controlling heart rate so that she could dove deeper and things like that. Is that kind of the area that you're headed towards in this kind of lowering of the heart rate or raising it back up? Is it this mind body connection and control?
[00:26:59] Yes. So you learn you learn that mind body connection and that mind body connection is called interception. It's the ability to sensitively understand your internal state. And there's studies that demonstrate that people who have improved interception actually have less stress because you're much more able to sensitively understand where your body is at. Check in on your body.
[00:27:21] And then if you notice stress, tension, increased heart rate, say, hey, I have an exercise that I've learned like a breathing exercise or guided meditation that I know will bring me back to that state of calm. So we start to become master self regulators, noticing where we're at. Having a set of tools to use at that moment, applying them and then shifting into the state that we choose to be in.
[00:27:42] Yeah. I love that. It's perfect master self regulators. You know, that's the call. I think the key right to everything. I'm sure nobody hears that and doesn't think that sounds fantastic. I'm wondering, you you talk a little bit in in some of your the numerous different speaking engagements you've had about how to be empowered in your own mind. And I you know that it's that's a beautiful statement, but it's more a theory than practical, you know, engagement for me. And I'm wondering, since this is kind of tying into that idea of being master over over one's own mind, body relationship, if you can kind of enumerate further on what you feel the empowerment to be empowered in one's own mind looks like in reality, like some of the benefits beyond being able to connect with stress and therefore lower it. You know that the mind body connection. But even further than that, some of the the practicality of what that looks like.
[00:28:41] Sure. So being empowered in your own mind to me means not being at the behest of the crazy thoughts that you consume most of us. Much of the time, you know, most of us just go through our lives with our brain generating a bunch of content in there that often makes us feel unhappy, like we're not good enough. Like things aren't good enough.
[00:29:03] And generally, you know, frustrated, not feeling great. Our brain is constantly telling us that makes us feel things that make us feel a little bit shitty. And frankly, there is no reason for that to be the, you know, existence of your life. There's no reason it needs to be that way. What you learn in meditation is to change your relationship with your thoughts. So rather than being sucked in by them and just listening to all the stuff it tells you and assuming that that's what you need to hear, you actually learn that you can rise above your thoughts. You can create metacognition, you can observe them, and you can make choices about where your brain goes. You can make choices about the contents of your own mind. And when you start to do that, you can now start to orient yourself towards the positive. You can now shut down those negative narratives that weren't serving you. You can now begin to recognize that the narratives that you had about yourself probably aren't true. And you can choose new narratives. It becomes an incredibly. Liberating way to live. And as you start to make better choices about the contents of your own mind, your body follows suit. You start to sort of shut down the negative narratives that keep you small and frustrated. You start opening yourself up to freedom and joy and possibility and the emotional experiences that come with it. And meditation, taking you out of your head and putting you in the present moment really brings an aliveness to your life, to the things that are right in front of you and the things that that are here and real rather than the problems that we worry about that probably will never happen. And so it's it's an incredibly empowered place to be.
[00:30:47] Yeah.
[00:30:48] And when you said, you know, and change the relationship with your own thoughts, a piece of me, I felt like a piece of that was a description or about as rather a piece of a description of happiness, you know, of the human condition to be had to change the relationship with your own thoughts is to change ones that are in disparate nature or causing discomfort. And so to change that back into something, it sounds like a control over one's unhappiness, which is exciting to the human condition.
[00:31:19] You know, across the globe, I think I don't think that's just approaches one particular genre of person, though. I'm sure that there are many that utilize it better than others. But changing the relationship with your own thoughts is is a power that I think a lot of people come to when they start meditation and don't realize that will be one of the benefits.
[00:31:37] You know, it's yeah, it's an extraordinary power. It makes such a difference in your life. You know, most of us are living in self created jails in our own mind, getting caught up in thoughts that truly create our own suffering. And it just doesn't need to be that way.
[00:31:55] Yeah. Who are the clients that that muse has so far reached? You talked about CEOs and people that are really looking at it, as you know. I mean, one of your a jolly good fellow. You know, he's he's brought it up with the Google meditation and stuff like that. But, um, who else do you have industries or populations that have really tapped into being clients? And who do you see it going towards next?
[00:32:18] Sure. So there are literally hundreds of thousands of people that use Muse regularly. And it's from, you know, moms and just awesome everyday people to corporate. So as I mentioned, you know, what CEOs do with their exact we have corporate programs in healthcare. So we have over 200 studies that have been done with Muse, both as a meditation tool and as a clinic. Great. E.g.. So we have a whole hospital systems that have been engaged in testing news. Mayo Clinic has written papers on breast cancer patients awaiting surgery using news. We have thousands of doctors and clinicians that recommend it to their patients. Oh, in an athlete's pro golfers, skaters, footballers, Olympic soccer teams, Olympic swimmers like really quite across the board. So we've we've been we've been very, very lucky that both from just average people who want to learn how to meditate to really top experts. All have been able to find value in the tool.
[00:33:27] Definitely. And I I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be able to find value in it. Even children, you know, young not children, but adolescents and people who are just learning to have that dialog. I think that there's such an opportunity there with young minds that people don't necessarily look at. And to that end. I'm wondering how young the youngest age group that, you know, that studies with Muse have been done on?
[00:33:52] So Muse used to be able to be used for anybody, but now we are GDPR compliant, which is Europe's privacy standard. So we say Muse is not for anybody under 16. Certainly, I've seen no photos of people using Muse of their very young children, though, according to label. It's not not not not till over 16. There have been studies done using Muse in schools. The Denver school board did one. Kansas State University did a study of grade eight students using news, and they saw a 72 percent decrease in kids being sent to the principal's office after using use in their classroom.
[00:34:28] Yeah, and that's kind of what I was suspecting. You know, I think a lot about some of these different ailments that afflict children who tend to be disturbing in the classroom environment or group settings. And it's more just about the therapies applied to social therapies apply to these children are very much so the feedback that it sounds like news would provide. It's about being in touch with the thoughts and reading relationship with the thoughts, which we just clarified. And so that kind of feedback sounds like it will be instrumental. What is there when someone gets on? How much can they explore on your Web site? Like, what are the price points and how does one go about purchasing it? Where at what phase is all of that in?
[00:35:07] So Muse's in market and has been for since 2014. We now have. So we have two devices, Muse two, which gives you real time feedback on your heart, breath, body and brain during meditation. And then we have a new device that we just launched, which is Muse s one of the things that we noticed as people were using Muse before going to bed to help them sleep. And so we now built this beautiful purpose-built device that does all the same things as Muse two. And it also gives you guided meditations and Real-Time feedback in a way that's designed to help you fall asleep faster. So it's a very soft, comfortable band that you were in bed to help you fall asleep. And then we're building more and more sleep features that are going to be released over the next year. So Muse 2, is somewhere around two hundred and fifty bucks. And Muse S is somewhere around 350.
[00:35:59] Nice. So not going to break the bank. You know, I mean, not inexpensive. But for the feedback it's providing and given, can you use one device, I'm assuming for different family members or definitely individuals or does everyone. OK. So you can change application.
[00:36:15] Yes. So we typically see, you know, device. Mom brings the device home, dad starts using it. Kids start meditating. Now you have the whole family using the one device together.
[00:36:24] Absolutely. That's so exciting. I'm wondering to that. And given that you just came out with muse s. What goals does Muse have on the horizon between the next one to three years? And has there been any conversation of application between the global dialog about the pandemic and Muse, or has that kind of been something that it's just obviously addressing within the functionality of the device? Or has the company come out and kind of looked towards efforts as to have a dialog with that?
[00:36:51] Oh, we're definitely dialoging with it. So since the start of the pandemic, we've obviously seen a massive increase in Muse usage, both people purchasing new devices, buying them as gifts, and people who had Muse's really starting to use them very, very regularly. And so we're really looking to how we can build more support and content to help support pandemic specifically. We have a collection of actually free content available to anyone called our S.O.S. Com collection with guided meditations for dealing with uncertainty, working at home, cetera.
[00:37:28] And then we also have monthly challenges that we run with both users and nonusers where you can be guided through a week of support on a particular topic focused around coalbed. So it might be finding peace working from home. Kofman the mind and uncertain times, etc..
[00:37:48] That's fascinating.
[00:37:49] That's a great idea to a monthly challenge, you know, focused around things that are particularly found within it. That's an interesting take on it. I think that a lot of people have tried to get there but haven't quite gotten there with a lot of their business endeavors. Monthly challenges are interesting. And are there any other goals for with the company has that is aside from the covered conversation? Are you guys going to come out with new models? What areas are you reaching further into? I feel like and this might be incredibly naive, but like diet and certain things that are affecting, you know, that the greater health and relationships certainly would be kind of this trickle down effect that would happen when being in conversation with one's own thoughts and their thought relationship. But has there been any movement towards, like diet and exercise or using it, showing people the utility of using it and other major areas of their life?
[00:38:39] So on our podcast that I co-host with Patricia Karpas called Untangle, we approach questions like diet, relationships, etc. every single week with guests in those areas. So, you know, we try. Give you more information around how the brain and the mind work and how to kind of optimize them in relationship to all these topics. And then in our guided content, we also have content specific for different areas, performance, work from home. We've a mindful eating collection. We have lots of relationship collections. So we also try and the guidance to give you new insights, new tools to help with specific areas of your life. And then the thing that we're really diving into now is sleep, because people don't realize how fundamental sleep is and was.
[00:39:28] Sleep has really gotten disrupted. Also, as an entrepreneur, sleep gets disrupted as well because you sit there as you're falling asleep and you can't help but think about all of the problems of the day and the problems of tomorrow and that poor sleep and poor sleep hygiene and poor ability to fall asleep actually depresses your immune system and decreases your emotional self-regulation and cognitive function the next day.
[00:39:51] So for us, we're really looking at how we kind of help people optimize this 24 hour cycle, how you can fall asleep more effectively, stay asleep longer, have more restful sleep, and then be more cognitively and emotionally capable the next day. Do your meditation, you know, enhance them further, sleep well at night and feed forward. Absolutely.
[00:40:13] And it's key. I think Muz asks coming out sounds perfect. I mean, the populations that need sleep most are the ones that always receive it less. It's new parenting entrepreneurs, people making very heavy handed decisions. There was in 2005 a report came out that said the average American president and all of our history got about four hours a night.
[00:40:33] And it was like, no, I need them to get so much more than that. They've got very hands on the button.
[00:40:39] You know, it's a it was just daunting. These. The more important the position, the less sleep. And it was and it was a reverse dialog. It was in conversation to some of the most prolific people that they had discovered in the arts were these people that got massive amounts of sleep. Some of these founders that were coming out saying, I get like nine hours a night and I can't believe anybody wouldn't. And these were the people that were changing the world at the time. And it was this kind of dialog, a back and forth. The article was. But I think it's it's so crucial. Young parents, people like that, Warriors' in all places, you know, don't leave. You have to be the founder of a billion dollar company to be a wildly important individual. And those people in those high stress, high stakes environment are usually not getting sleep. And so I think that feedback is crucial. And I'm glad you brought up your podcast, because I'm wondering, I haven't had the opportunity to dove in and explore more. And so for everyone listening, join me in that endeavor. It's called Untangle. And I really want to climb into a little bit about that experience, how long it's been running. And also, do you bring users of Muse on to have like an actual conversation with a user?
[00:41:48] So the podcast actually started with Patricia Karpas. It was a podcast that she had started building. And when she joined our company as the head of content, I joined as the co-host. And we love doing it because we get to speak to experts, neuroscientists, meditators, top athletes, top artists and unpack the practices in their life that allow them to be effective. And my particular passion is talking to neuroscientists and through with them, unpacking how the brain works and then how we can use that knowledge and understanding the brain to be able to optimize our behavior and our functioning. It turns out that a fair number of the people I interview are users. You know, my my colleagues and peers and in neuroscience and in arts or athletics, they tend to actually also use music. And often I don't even know that.
[00:42:39] I interviewed B.J. Fogger, a top behaviorist, and when he got on the music, oh, my God, you make me use I'm like, oh, my God, you know that I made music crazy. And Dr. Stan Kotkin, he's a top relationship therapist. He was like, I love you. I'm like, oh, my God, you know what news is like? Yes, I use it every day. So it it ends up being kind of serendipitous and typically slightly embarrassing moment for me. I'm sitting here like, what am I supposed to wonder? But it's lovely.
[00:43:06] Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's exciting. I'm glad to know that. And I'm glad to know that you guys kind of interview people who you don't know have used it as well just to garner the information around it without this kind of marketing standpoint. And I look forward to getting on and I look forward to purchasing it because I'm sold. I'm all in. And I practice my station and I have for 10 years based on my spiritual following. So I I'm wholeheartedly looking to jump into this. I think it's important for people to understand that regardless of what you practice and how you do, you can always change your relationship with meditation. You know, there have been people who've meditated for 50 years that are constantly changing their relationship with it. And this device sounds like it could do that and should do that as well. I'm wondering if you can if you can answer our final question on this series is always one of my favorites and it's one that people usually think that they won't be able to answer.
[00:44:01] Perhaps, given that your life has been dedicated to research and and proffering up solutions, you'll be able to more easily than one often thinks. But if someone approached you tomorrow and it's important, we didn't get into it today. But you also have a lot of dialog about women in business. And I do want to ciAriele back around one day and pepper you with that, because that's the platform that we run a lot of our series off. Patricia Kathleen, podcasts. But if you were approached tomorrow by a woman or a female identified a non binary individual, essentially anyone other than a white CIS gendered man. And the person said, listen, I started my career off in this wonderful science and I've I've done a peripheral amount of work there. And I'm thinking about launching this new device, this tech device feedback company. So something remarkably similar, perhaps not identical to what you've done. But she was headed. They were headed that way. And they said, can you give me your top three pieces of advice? What would those top three pieces be?
[00:45:02] Knowing what you know now, sure, that's easy.
[00:45:06] So number one is you don't need to know everything. So I think as a founder or an entrepreneur, it can feel daunting when you start a business because you feel like, OK, well, I need to understand finance. I need in the case of my business, manufacturing, engineering, technology, neuroscience are logistics. There were so many pieces to this puzzle and I really only understood one piece. Got educated and learned myself several of those pieces like fundraising and being the CEO of a company, having ever worked in one myself. And then I was able to attract and hire individuals who knew how to do everything else.
[00:45:44] Experts in their own domain who understood manufacturing in China and logistics and customer care and whatever the role was. So tip number one is you really don't need to know everything. And frankly, there's very few things you do need to know because you can bring on the people that matter to do the job. Yeah. Number two is do not let your own thoughts of not being good enough or not accomplishing enough. Hold you back. We are all amazing capable creatures, but we are held back by the stories in our own mind. You know, the stories that say, oh, you know, we shouldn't take the risk because or people will think this of us or what if it just doesn't work out? And so it's normal for those thoughts to be there. But the person who becomes a successful entrepreneur is the person who is overall to able to overcome those thoughts, who is not held back by them, the person who takes the step and moves forward despite the thoughts and fears in their mind and body. And number three is lead with inspiration. So you may not know most of the things that you need to know to do this. Totally fine. But if you have an inspiring vision and you're able to articulate it and that inspiring vision is going to make the world better in some way, people will want to come along and join you and follow you and work with you and work for you and bring this vision to life together. So the most successful entrepreneurs are those that are able to see a vision that the world needs, that people agree is going to be good for the world and inspire people to come along with them.
[00:47:23] Nice. I love that. So I have. Don't. No one.
[00:47:29] You don't need to know everything. Number two, do not like negative thoughts. Hold you back. And number three, let lead with inspiration and let your vision inspire your audience. And I have to say that, as you said, those things as as silly or interesting as it sounds, I feel like if your device muse could speak, it would say that's exactly what it does. I think so. Yeah. I think that you've you've got the idea in tune and chip with what your craft and your knowledge have all developed in this embodiment of the device. And we are out of time today. But I really want to say I appreciate you taking the time.
[00:48:09] I know everyone is at once available and incredibly busy, you know, during this time of stay at home. And so I want to say thank you so much for all of your knowledge and time today.
[00:48:21] Thank you for the opportunity to share it. Much appreciated.
[00:48:24] Absolutely. And for those of you listening, we've been speaking with Ariel Garten. She's the founder of Muse. You can located at W w w dot Tewes Muse dot com.
[00:48:36] And until we speak again next time, remember to always bet on yourself. Slainte.