Female Disruptors: Dayna Bradley and Nawleen Kaur of TPL Lighting On The Three Things You Need To…

Female Disruptors: Dayna Bradley and Nawleen Kaur of TPL Lighting On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Dayna: Work hard, not long: What others can accomplish in eight hours, I can complete in three. Now I have five hours to focus on myself, my goals and looking forward to the next challenge.

Nawleen: Think with a cool head: Words can’t be taken back and it is always better to think before you speak.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dayna Bradley, President, TPL Lighting and Nawleen Kaur, Creative Lighting Specialist, The Adelaide Project by TPL Lighting.

Dayna Bradley serves as the president of TPL Lighting. She has over 25 years of experience in the furniture industry.

Nawleen Kaur serves as the Creative Lighting Specialist for The Adelaide Project. The Adelaide Project, a revolutionary studio concept conceived, curated, and designed by TPL Lighting, was born out of the belief that, as partners to the architecture and design community, lighting plays a collaborative role in working to elevate the overall design aesthetic.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Dayna Bradley: Prior to joining TPL Lighting, I worked at my previous company for 20 years and aspired to one day serve as President. When the company’s timeline did not align with my career goals, I knew I had to make some difficult decisions. A friend of mine introduced me to the owners of TPL Lighting, Jennifer and Karolyn Pott, and almost immediately after meeting them I knew TPL Lighting was the perfect fit for me. A few things that stood out to me were that they were women running their own business who also happened to be sisters. I knew that with this team we would be able to shake up the old school nature of the lighting industry and really make a change. I also knew that the ones who could make this change were going to be women.

Nawleen Kaur: I started my career as an interior designer and served in that role for 15 years; most recently as a design firm’s workplace studio lead before taking on a role in consultative lighting sales. In 2020, I took on my first sales role, which, to be honest, fell into my lap, BUT has quickly proven to be the best decision I’ve made. As an interior designer and being on construction sites, I have an intimate understanding of what it is to be a woman in a predominantly male environment and quickly learned how to be a strong and respected voice. Dayna and I have known each other professionally and eventually as friends, since 2007. She has always served as a source of inspiration on how to lead with kindness and strength; so when TPL approached me for this role, I was introduced to Jennifer and Karolyn Pott and felt a natural connection to TPL’s predominantly female leadership.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

DB: The lighting industry is very rigid and since starting at TPL and chatting with my network, there is a huge interest in shaking things up. Historically, lighting has followed a commodity based approach to sales. It can often lack transparency and therefore trust. It is TPL Lighting’s goal to evolve this very old school narrative around lighting through adding transparency and move the conversation from a commodity approach to selling and focus on the human experience of lighting. This human approach not only includes the person who sits under the light but also the experience of each human who touches each part of the process in the path to market. We are creating a conversation to help people understand how people experience light, how light can affect happiness and wellness, and how space can be changed with light.

NK: When working as an interior designer, there seemed to be an endless battle with suppliers and we were often at the mercy of what we were told when it came to pricing, timing, and availability. When we asked for more transparency, we were often told that this is just the way it is. Through the creation of The Adelaide Project, a revolutionary studio concept conceived, curated, and designed by TPL Lighting, we are able to educate and collaborate within the community and be a true resource with the clients’ best interests at heart. Under the guidance of Dayna and her experience selling furniture and my understanding of everything it takes to put together a furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) package, we can deliver that full FF&E package with transparency and trust.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

DB: I had some unique challenges as a woman and lesbian in the furniture industry. Since starting my career, every time I would walk into a room I would instantly be judged and my suggestions were second guessed or ignored. At my first job, I worked for a wholesale company flipping furniture. For years, there was a client that no one could get to make a deal. My boss decided to let me have a shot at making a sale because he figured he had nothing to lose at that point. He sold me the entire lot of furniture for $1 and said whatever I sold it for was my profit to keep. I borrowed money to buy a new blazer to look more professional and walked into this client’s office. With confidence, I asked him what it would take for him to do a deal and after some negotiating, he bought the whole lot! I had never been so proud and learned to never let anyone tell me I am not capable just because of my gender. At that moment I knew I was born for sales.

NK: On one of my first projects, I made the terrible mistake of swapping the finishes of two identical rooms. I remember being on site and walking into the nearly completed room only to find I had been looking at my very symmetrical plan upside down when completing the finishes schedule (!). I kept my composure and explained to the flooring contractor on site, my mistake. They were quick to help and were able to correct my error in order to finish the project without incident. At the end of the day, we were all a team with the same goal and by owning up to my mistake, the rest of the crew respected me and helped me fix it. Even though I was panicking inside, I knew that worrying would not fix the actual issue at hand. This project helped me develop my leadership style and I learned how to carry myself during stressful times– while always double checking my drawings!

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

DB: I have a personal “Board of Directors” that supports me in all decisions both personal and professional. They come from all different backgrounds and I have a deep respect for their opinions. I have always been a risk taker but I am a calculated risk taker. These individuals provide me with guidance and knowledge that I may not personally possess and help me make informed decisions. When I make decisions I am always conscious about how my actions will impact others and they provide this insight, keep me grounded, and educate me.

NK: I will always be grateful for Gloria and David Freeman and the incredible experience they gave me. Working at a small family run design firm, the Freeman’s allowed me to have full control of my projects from start to finish. If I had begun my career at a large firm, I likely wouldn’t have had the opportunity to gain the wide range of experience I did so early on in my career. They taught kindly and pragmatically, which made me realize I wasn’t suited to work for a large corporation. David and Gloria took a very human approach to leadership and I looked for that same friendly and supportive environment in every career change moving forward. Thank you, Freeman + Freeman!

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

DB: I was raised to question everything and challenge what I see and hear. From my mother telling me at a young age to question authority, including hers as a parent, to studying feminist theory, I have spent my life never accepting the status quo. I have learned that we cannot stand by systems that “have stood the test of time” knowing that someone is getting hurt by them. Disruption is only beneficial if it helps one person. If disruption doesn’t present a win somewhere else, then it’s just disruption for disruption’s sake.

NK: I define disruption as giving something else a chance. As a woman of colour, I am very aware that this current position I hold would not have been possible had others not disrupted the path for me. We are disrupting the way the lighting industry operates because it is necessary to move forward. Time and time again “trusted” old systems have oppressed specific groups, so clearly these systems can no longer be trusted.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

DB:

Work hard, not long: What others can accomplish in eight hours, I can complete in three. Now I have five hours to focus on myself, my goals and looking forward to the next challenge.

The best people give the benefit of the doubt: If someone is coming to you and they’re prickly, step back and remember it’s not about you. You don’t know what their life is like or what’s happening with them in that moment: give them the benefit of the doubt and know that nothing is ever about you — not even the good stuff.

Hope is not a strategy: You either will do something or you won’t. Hoping for success is not going to be successful in the end.

NK:

Think with a cool head: Words can’t be taken back and it is always better to think before you speak.

“Punch him if you have to”: My mum taught me to stand up for myself and gave me these words in response to my running home crying when a neighbourhood boy hit me at aged 10. She told me to come home only after I stood up to him!

Always lead with kindness and positivity but, as a woman, if someone speaks down to you, you have to have the confidence to stand up for yourself and not step aside.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

DB: As President, it was important to me to shake everything up. We implemented a 2030 strategy for TPL that not only outlines company goals but also considers industry goals. At the center of everything we do, we guide with the Human Experience. We are building a working environment that drives collaboration, energy, excitement, and engagement.

NK: Through everything we do, we are bringing back conversations to the Human Experience. The Adelaide Project is shifting the traditional commodity sales approach to lighting to one that understands how people interact. Through shifting our sales model, we are focusing on community, education and collaboration. We are emphasizing how people experience light; how light can affect happiness and wellness; and how space is impacted and changed with lighting.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

DB: When men and women enter their careers, men are looked at for their “potential” and women are looked at for their “proficiency.” A man will be promoted because of potential, whereas a woman will have to prove she can do something before she is promoted. This typically results in a five year promotion gap between men and women. Women can always do it but they are forced to prove it first. And invariably, the uterus becomes part of the conversation and women are judged on how it is, or isn’t used. No one goes to a man who is up for a promotion and asks him who is going to take care of his kids. It is automatically assumed that the woman will have to take time out of her career to focus on raising children. Conversely, if a woman decides not to have children, there’s a perception about who she is because she didn’t procreate. We have to evolve as a society to understand that gender should never be part of the discussion about capabilities at work. However you identify yourself has no place in determining value of work.

NK: The pandemic opened the eyes of many to acknowledge how much work women actually do in regard to career, childcare and home life. With many being at home, balancing these aspects of life can be possible but only if employers support their staff and offer flexibility. At TPL Lighting, the team is very flexible and supportive. If we (all people), are open with our employers about our personal needs for child care and time flexibility, companies can foster a supportive culture that builds trust and commitment amongst everyone. Not having support prevents women from thriving.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

DB: Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown. This book has taught me to lead with compassion. I also love Ariana Huffington and her teachings about mindfulness and slowing down. I am also personally passionate about news and history around sex trafficking and am currently developing a podcast to discuss the topic.

NK: Boundary Boss by Terri Cole has taught me to be an intentional leader and to put others’ needs at the forefront of decisions without foregoing my own boundaries. I also follow The Financial Diet on Instagram and listen to their podcast: The Financial Confessions — catered specifically towards women and money.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

DB: Two things that I am very passionate about are women’s equal rights and addressing the hunger crisis. Because of this, I am a supporter of the Canadian Women’s Foundation and The Daily Bread Food Bank. These two organizations are making such a difference for the people they impact.

NK: As a mother, I would never want anything to happen to my child or any other child. Through this passion, I support Second Harvest, a Toronto based food rescue charity and SickKids hospital, also in Toronto.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

DB: Stand in your light: You shouldn’t be distracted by people who can’t see your vision. Stay away from the shade of other people that try to throw their negativity on you and move back into your own light.

NK: Don’t be shy to relate to people as humans: We need to be comfortable with approaching business with a human touch. Through personally relating to people and showing vulnerability, business successes can go much further than with a cold “business” interaction.

How can our readers follow you online?

https://tpllighting.com/

@tpl_lighting

https://theadelaideproject.com/

@theadelaideproject

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.


Female Disruptors: Dayna Bradley and Nawleen Kaur of TPL Lighting On The Three Things You Need To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Dayna Yvonne Jondal On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s…

Women In Wellness: Dayna Yvonne Jondal On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Get a coach, mentor, or a therapist you trust. I would love to normalize ongoing (and preventative!) self- development. There’s simply no replacement for an objective mirror and person who’s exclusively committed to helping you know yourself better and thrive. If you have a goal, or just enjoy learning, find a mentor or someone you trust in that arena to help support your development. It’s an act of love.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dayna Yvonne Jondal, M.A., NBC-HWC, RYT-500, a Pillar National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach.

Dayna offers Integrative Health Coaching and Yoga Therapy to individuals and companies looking to build mental fitness, resilience, and learn communication strategies that strengthen relationships. She has a M.A. in Integrative Health & Well-being Coaching, is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and is an Advanced Teacher of Therapeutic Yoga, en route to become a Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT). When she is not coaching or teaching yoga, she enjoys developing curriculum and training new coaches with organizations such as Emory University and Mindbodygreen.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

Yes! I used to be a math & philosophy major in my undergrad years, which means I was often stuck in my head. During my first year of law school, my body sort of collapsed from stress. I was suffering from panic attacks and anxiety. Around that same time, I discovered yoga, which helped me to get out of my head and start inhabiting my body. Yoga offered me a direct, experiential way of knowing about mind and body that slowly but dramatically improved my health. Over the course of several years, I kept learning, found my way into the Masters program in Integrative Health & Well-being Coaching, began a yoga therapy training program at Kripalu, and eventually healed my panic attacks with holistic lifestyle medicine and functional nutrition strategies. I’m interested in everything philosophical and well-being related — the rest is history!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

Great question — I think one of the most interesting stories was when I began working with autoimmune patients. Those patients really got me more interested in functional medicine and nutrition because so many of them had multiple sensitivities and were managing flares. I’m glad I discovered the world of functional nutrition because it’s been incredibly helpful in healing my own anxiety. On the other hand, I sometimes see a lot of sensationalism in that community and I now have a much more balanced, values — centric, person- first approach to how I coach. Some things in life are just hard, sometimes sickness is unavoidable, and we have to meet people where they are at. There are a lot of cultural and economic barriers to simply “being well.” I like to remain optimistic but I think I’m a lot more realistic and compassionate about the challenges folks are facing than I was at the beginning of my career.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The biggest mistake I made was being too preachy about wellness. I think we all agree there are issues with healthcare. In my case, it was transformative and energizing to experience a successful, inside — out healing experience. Finding new perspectives is fun — discovering a different way of thinking about health is exciting. After my positive experience, it was tempting to want to take the pulpit about everything that’s challenging with conventional medicine and offer a more holistic, integral, consciousness- based approach. The thing is: so much of that excitement is still taking place in an intellectual plane, not the somatic/ experiential place where health and healing often occurs. I still love ideas and feel nourished by them, but I try to maintain a balanced, integral worldview. Lifestyle medicine can be delivered in a variety of spirits — I sometimes see it being delivered as a “cure all” that echoes the exact same marketing scheme it was meant to reject — it feels like a “one ill, one pill” model, where you’ve replaced pills with the latest biohacking scheme or protocol.

The lesson for me is that everyone is susceptible to various forms of suffering, no matter how committed they are to their health and wellness. While I absolutely believe you can have a HUGE impact on your health and resilience through the choices you make, I also understand that there’s no immunity from life itself, and that’s why it’s important to connect with values and one’s sense of meaning and an authentic Self or sense of purpose.

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

As a formally socially-awkward math major, I think the last decade for me has been about reclaiming the importance of healthy relationships in well-being. One of the major areas I enjoy coaching around is helping people to learn compassionate communication strategies where they can self- connect more deeply to their feelings and needs, and share those experiences with the important people in their lives. What I’ve seen is that this builds trust, intimacy, and — in a work context — a more authentic leadership style and work environment. Some of my clients have gotten promotions, probably because of their ability to actively listen and manage a team conversation in an articulate but open-hearted way.

The other area of my work is yoga therapy, and I recently started working in a behavioral health setting. While I’m newer at yoga therapy than coaching, I hope to offer the wisdom of this tradition to populations that wouldn’t normally be able to experience and connect with it.

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

  1. Get a coach, mentor, or a therapist you trust. I would love to normalize ongoing (and preventative!) self- development. There’s simply no replacement for an objective mirror and person who’s exclusively committed to helping you know yourself better and thrive. If you have a goal, or just enjoy learning, find a mentor or someone you trust in that arena to help support your development. It’s an act of love.
  2. Hydrate better. Honestly, I see dehydration as a major issue for most of my friends (and clients!). You can sometimes tell just by glancing at their skin whether they’re well hydrated or not. Aim for half of your body weight in ounces (i.e. if you’re 130 lbs, that’s 65 oz. daily). Try to prioritize making sure the water is filtered, and aim to go beyond just water when you think about hydration. Vegetables and fruits are hydrating. Add a squeeze of lemon or drink some green juice to get a deeper hydration in the morning. You can also keep some electrolyte packets handy or opt for bone broth. In addition to ingesting your water, make sure you keep your skin hydrated with an appropriate oil. My rule of thumb for skin health is “if you can’t eat it, don’t put it on your body.” My favorite oil for a self- massage routine is coconut oil.
  3. Sleep more. There will never be a sexy replacement for healthy sleep and Circadian rhythm. Explore your sleep hygiene and eliminate the barriers to healthy sleep — whether that’s managing light, temperature, stress, avoiding conflict before bed, etc.. Everyone needs to know their optimal number of hours, wake time, whether they’re getting into deep rest stages, etc. If you’re techy, check out Eight Sleep — I contract with this company and they specifically look at sleep health by incorporating biofeedback technology.
  4. Safety matters. Do you feel safe in your life? A lot of us perhaps take for granted that we think we are generally feeling safe, when in reality our nervous system is experiencing constant threats from relationships, work, and the news. If you are not sending your nervous system a regular message of safety, it’s time to re-evaluate what “inputs” are coming in through your five senses and take steps to send yourself a message of safety. This is where nourishing relationships can be especially helpful, since our family and partners often help us to feel happy, social, and cared fo. Beyond that, guided imagery, taking control of nutrition, etc. can all help to send a message of safety.
  5. Start becoming aware of environmental threats to your health. I’m very happy to see that terms like “endocrine disruptors” are becoming part of the parlance in the health world. We know that being healthy is no longer just about what we eat and whether we exercise.. We need to be awake to the environments we spend time in and what the hazards are. Are you practicing proper hygiene? Do you have air and water filters? Is anything off-gassing? Are you using natural fibers with clothes and linen? Is there fragrance in any of your candles or personal care products? Are you drinking out of plastics? Do your vegetables have pesticides on them? We all need to start thinking about not just what we eat and interact with, but the environmental hazards of that thing. Heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, etc. are all real threats to our health and hormones, and are instrumental in turning genes on and off that determine our overall health, ability to lose weight, etc.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would find a way to bring “mood food” boxes to those suffering from mental and emotional health disturbances. I believe that “Food as Medicine” should be a first line intervention here, but that many struggle to keep up with the financial and time demands of eating in a way that would keep them healthy, happy, and stable.

Another movement I could get behind is eliminating air fresheners and dryer sheets, which offer little benefit and are often filled with endocrine disrupting compounds!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

  1. Before and while you help others, help yourself. Many who are drawn to the helping professions are Wounded Healers. We need to commit to our own self-work in order to really show up for our clients.
  2. Don’t be afraid to listen to your intuition. Don’t be afraid to question it, either.
  3. It’s okay to change your mind about things. I can’t remember who quoted this, but you don’t have to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.
  4. Health is a value — let people choose what they value, and explore what really matters to them.
  5. Become aware of the difference between promoting health and delivering moralistic judgments about what people should do.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

Honestly, it’s hard to choose between mental health and environmental changes. I believe they’re interrelated. Re-connecting to the natural world and feeling ourselves as beings that actually belong and are designed to be here would help a lot of mental health issues. From a yogic perspective, disease can arise from a sense of disconnection. Dianne Connelly has another way of saying it — she says “All sickness is homesickness.” I find that pretty profound and it relates to really feeling Earth and our bodies as a home.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

You can join my mailing list at daynayvonne.com and follow me on Instagram @daynayvonne. Also be sure to follow www.withpillar.com and instagram.com/withpillar

Thank you for these fantastic insights!


Women In Wellness: Dayna Yvonne Jondal On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With Jayesh Parmar and Nicole Parmar of Gunkii

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

We would focus on creating a sustainable global organization mandate that has shared values. If every organization focused on people, had shared values, and were sustainable, this would lead to a trickle down and there would be a lot of good in the world.

As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jayesh Parmar and Nicole Parmar.

Jayesh Parmar, born in Saskatoon, Canada — San Francisco incubated, alumni of Toronto’s Extreme Startups, New York’s Canadian Technology Accelerator and Vancouver’s Hyper Growth Program; Jayesh now calls Vancouver, British Columbia home. He was the former CEO/Co-Founder of Picatic.com which was acquired by Eventbrite in 2018. Jayesh is an active investor, a lifelong student, and has jumped back into being a co-CEO and co-founder of Gunkii, the world’s sexiest tongue scraper. Giving back to the community and those in need has always been at the heart of what drives Jayesh’s passion, alongside his mission is to build profit and purpose-driven companies with team cultures that are immersed in giving, cheekiness, fun, and adventure.

Gunkii incorporates his Indian roots and the Ayurveda system of medicine while embracing his teaching background and love of helping children. More importantly, Jayesh believes that profit is not a stand-alone benefit but rather a shared responsibility to serve those with fewer means. Jayesh is married to an amazing partner, Nicole. Together they are the proud parents to an incredible tiny human, Jai. When not spending time on building businesses, Jayesh loves spending his “off-time” coaching and hanging with his family.

Nicole Parmar is a systems thinker that takes a macro approach to marketing. She is a veteran consultant covering social media, PPC, branding, content marketing, SEO/SEM, automation, hyper personalization, and leading growth marketing practices. She was named Top Forty Under 40 by Business In Vancouver. Clients include TEDx, BE Power, RE/MAX, Picatic (acquired by Eventbrite), Trainerize (Acquired by ABC Financial), and many more. She has taught growth marketing at BrainStation and was a lead growth mentor for Hyper Growth and Hyper Growth Life at BC Tech where she also served as an Embedded Executive.

While helping many companies grow, she has also started, executed, and grown 3 companies of her own: a growth marketing consultant company, children’s books based on her son’s adventures, and last but not least, Gunkii: an oral hygiene product.

Nicole holds degrees in Education, Deaf Education, Psychology as well as a Master’s in Evaluation and Measurement. She has lived and worked in San Francisco, Toronto, New York and currently resides in Vancouver. In her spare time, Nicole loves hanging with her crazy 7-year-old and husband (who often acts like a 7 year old). She enjoys traveling the world, co-chairing the school PAC, and chauffeuring her son to all of his extracurricular activities!

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?

We both started our careers as teachers: Jayesh taught Phys. Ed and Nicole taught Deaf and Hard of Hearing students. Jayesh then transitioned and was the CEO of Picatic (acquired by Eventbrite) and Nicole moved into growth marketing (supporting 2 company acquisitions). After Picatic was acquired, the two decided to move into consumer-packaged goods (CPG) and focus on direct to consumer (DTC).

Can you share the most interesting story that has happened to you since you two got married?

There are a few! I think the most interesting one (and most appropriate for the magazine) is that 4 days after we wed, we moved to San Francisco. After that, we moved to Toronto. Right after that, we moved to New York and then Vancouver. It is safe to say we lived out of a suitcase for the first two years of our marriage. We are happy to report that we have been in Vancouver for 8 years!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When we first started Gunkii, there were a lot of things we did not know! Starting a business is like drinking from a fire hose, there is a lot of information to take in at one time! Back when we launched, we had no idea we needed a Medical License. Who knew a tongue scraper would be considered a medical device!? This is why you have great investors and great advisors: they fill in the gaps for you!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Our company stands out because of our brand, execution, and quality. We are also big on being tongue and cheek while being a shared value company.

We are an accessible luxury item. Most tongue scrapers sell on reseller sites and are made of plastic. Gunkii is made from a single piece of premium block food-safe aluminum. We make our products to last a lifetime!

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We are working on several exciting new projects. Right now, we are working on a kid’s version of Gunkii. We’re also working on color variations and artist collaborations.

Our product pipeline also has some fun things in store, but we are not ready to spill the gunk on that, just yet! Color variations have been asked for several times by families, so it is easy to locate who’s Gunkii is who’s.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

First and foremost, there has to be a positive work environment that is based on trust. Our employees thrive when they feel their ideas, creativity, and values are shared and heard. Hire people who are better than you in their respective areas and then get out of their way. Keep open communications and make sure everyone knows the true north of the company.

How do you define “leadership?”

Leadership to us is being able to direct our resources and team to achieve the organizational goals. Effective leaders provide clarity of purpose, motivate, and guide the team to realize and execute its mission.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

We have a lot of people we are grateful for. First and foremost, we are fortunate to have a great investor base. We can lean on any one of them at any time for anything. We also need to send a shout out to our early adopters who supported us when we launched on Kickstarter. We launched and sold to 50+ countries. Without the support of those early adopters, we wouldn’t have had the jump start we had. Last, but not least, thank you to our new customers and those following our journey!

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We are creating an opportunity and an enterprise to help people. As previously mentioned, we are working on shared values. When you purchase a Gunkii, a portion of that sale goes to support a child born with a cleft lip or a cleft palate via Project Smile.

What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple?” Please share a story or example for each.

Oh man, this made us laugh…Only 5?

  • Trello — our household and our business would not run without Trello. The saying goes, “If it’s not in Trello, it didn’t happen.” We keep house items, to do lists, gift lists, you name it, on a board.
  • Google Calendar — how do people operate without shared calendars? And without alerts?
  • Patience — Jayesh will tell you that Nic has the patience of a saint. Nic cannot state the same for Jayesh.
  • Off time — Everyone needs downtime! Time to recharge. Time away from kids, duties, and responsibilities. We both try to afford that to one another.
  • Humor — You need to be able to laugh at yourself. Laugh at the mistakes. Laugh in general! After all, laughter is the best medicine.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

We would focus on creating a sustainable global organization mandate that has shared values. If every organization focused on people, had shared values, and were sustainable, this would lead to a trickle down and there would be a lot of good in the world.

Can you please give us your favorite “life lesson quote?” Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Jayesh’s favorite: failure is just a data point. Anytime you are going to do something new you will continuously be faced by hurdles and nos. When this happens, you need perseverance.

Nic’s favorite: you never really lose unless you stop trying. If you want something bad enough you will find a way to get it. I have been called “persistent” once or twice in life!

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?

We would enjoy breakfast with Bill and Melinda Gates. Conversing with them about business and their personal lives would be dynamic. They utilize their privilege and appear to be responsible with the foundation they have created and grown.

How can our readers follow your work online?

Thanks for asking. Follow us here:

www.gunkii.com

https://www.instagram.com/gunkii_tonguescraper/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/Gunkiitonguescraper

https://www.linkedin.com/company/42713386/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.


Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With Jayesh Parmar and Nicole Parmar of Gunkii was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Melinda Haughey Of Proxi On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“Write it down” — I’m one of those people who carries around a lot of ideas in my head all the time. I can’t do anything without analyzing what is going on and taking mental notes. When I first started Proxi, this habit was fine, though the mental notepad got really really long. The challenge came, though, when we started hiring our first developers and team members. As you can imagine, carrying around all the visions for the company in my head wasn’t smart when working with a team. With the encouragement of a mentor, I started writing down as much as I could — trying to get all of those ideas and knowledge out of my head. It is still a skill that I have to practice and get better at, but I see the value already from using these written notes to make sure everyone is on the same page.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melinda Haughey of Proxi.

Melinda is a former U.S. intelligence professional, successful researcher, and CEO of fast growing startup, Proxi. She uses her expertise in geospatial visualization, online communities, and collaboration to inform the direction of Proxi, mentor other founders, and drive research in human-computer interaction forward. Melinda received an engineering degree at Texas A&M and is a PhD candidate in the college of engineering at the University of Washington.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

It has been quite a career journey to becoming the CEO of Proxi. I grew up in the Houston area and then earned a Chemical Engineering degree from Texas A&M. While pursuing that degree, I worked on some data analysis projects and found that I was actually more passionate about data analytics and visualization than chemical engineering! Then, while I was finishing my degree, I was recruited into the U.S. Intelligence community. I spent a lot of time working in dark rooms doing intelligence analysis both as a direct employee and later a contractor. Many of the tools and visualizations I was building were geospatial and I became fascinated with how the technology I was building would be used and perceived by others, especially people in the field. One day, someone told me about the field of user experience research, and it was exactly what I was getting excited about! I started thinking about ways that I could work more in this area, yet not lose all the experience and knowledge I had built up to date.

And then the 2016 elections happened. As someone who has always been active on social media and involved in the national security space, I began to worry about growing online radicalization. Around this time, I heard Professor Kate Starbird talking on NPR. She was talking about her study of online communities, misinformation, and how user experience on social media platforms could be contributing to the radicalization. I was fascinated–and within months found myself at the University of Washington working under Dr. Starbird to get my PhD.

During this time, I studied online communities, especially the ways that information was shared across platforms. I also spent a lot of time working with leading tech journalists, helping them understand what was happening on social media since they didn’t have ways to collect and analyze data en masse. It was these skills — understanding online communities, data visualization, and user experience — that helped form the social element of Proxi.

Fast forward to Fall of 2020: many people in my Seattle neighborhood were looking for safe ways to trick-or-treat. I cobbled together some existing tools and built a crowdsourced map so that parents could easily see homes that were providing safe Halloween experiences. The map went viral, even being featured on Good Morning America. I could see there was a need for a better tool to build collaborative, community centered maps–and realized I may be just the person to solve this problem.

However, I did need help. That’s when I called my longtime friend Chelsey Roney. She was a serial entrepreneur who successfully built and sold a SaaS business. In short, she understood the business side of founding a startup. Proxi was born! We built out a prototype in less than 6 months. Since the launch we have found time and again that this tool was really addressing a need with local communities, experts and influencers.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Maps are an intrinsic and an essential part of our digital lives, helping us navigate the world and develop spatial awareness. Yet the mapping technology space is dominated by a handful of incumbents whose technology is difficult to customize and use by everyday people. By putting the power to make easy maps in the hands of parents, business owners, and local guides–all with the goal of making it easy for everyone to decide where to go and what to do with trusted recommendations at their fingertips.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When we first started we weren’t yet sure how important Proxi would be to local communities. We had successfully made a made in our hometown of Seattle that went viral, but for our next map we wanted to go national! We decided to build a map of Christmas lights…across the entire country.

We spent an embarrassing amount of hours reading about holiday happenings in the U.S. We were manually adding hundreds of points to our maps each day to try to make it look like people were using it all over the country. Though this map only went viral in the Seattle area — not nationally, we sure did know a lot about holiday light shows!

But more importantly, we learned that knowledge is local. A national Christmas lights map was not going to be as trusted as something built by your local city, community or neighborhood. From then on we became passionate about putting the power to make maps into the hands of local leaders.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Our first mentor, Mona Akmal, was essential to Proxi becoming a reality. After Chelsey and I had finished up our proof-of-concept prototype, we were still hesitant about becoming a real company. Mona is a successful, inspiring CEO here in Seattle and she offered us some unexpected advice. In our first meeting, instead of having us walk her through the business model, the product, etc. she instructed us to look inward. She told us to envision where we would be in 10 years. What we would do for fun, how would we spend our day, and what would people know us for? Chelsey and I separated for a week and came back to share our visions with one another. What became clear is that we both had massive visions for our future. Among other things, we wanted to be supporting and investing in women founders. We knew to reach that vision, we had to really lean in and start now. Instead of Mona explicitly telling us to “go for it,” she allowed us to inspire ourselves.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

As someone who has spent the past three years taking classes on social science, I’m keenly aware that disruption doesn’t always mean success. Disrupting can be good when the existing solutions are built by organizations who don’t show a propensity to change and evolve with their consumers. We feel that’s going on in the mapping space right now. Our primary competitor hasn’t added features in years. Due to the sheer size of the organization, this competitor is the go-to choice for making interactive maps today. We are able to disrupt because we understand our users and what they need when it comes to mapping. We’re focusing on making the best product possible for them and their communities.

I think disrupting can be negative when it comes solely from a place of monetization, without regard for the community they are serving. When anyone starts a pitch by saying, “Look at this amazing size market, we’re going to make money here,” it turns me off. Because you know that they are going into this venture solely with dollar signs in their eyes. They may disrupt with technology, but without actually understanding the community and their needs they could actually be hurting existing processes that work well without technology.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“Just Launch it” — When we were first building Proxi, I was the one with the product and user experience expertise. I had spent so much time thinking about and perfecting how to make the website as beautiful as possible. I kept fixing and iterating over and over. At one point, my co-founder Chelsey basically said that we need to “Just launch it.” And we did. It was painful to me because I knew it wasn’t perfect and that there were a few bugs. But she was totally right — we needed to get it out into the world to make sure what we were building was actually the solution to a problem that people were facing.

“Your Story Matters” — When I first started talking to people about Proxi, I would start with my story about the neighborhood trick-or-treat map that I had built. It was a really awesome story, but we started hitting roadblocks with investors or friends who thought the vision Chelsey and I had was too small or just for local parents. I thought if we stopped telling this origin story, and instead leaned into my geospatial expertise, I would be more successful. I wasn’t. What I found was that I needed to lean into my story even more to describe what I had learned from our experience and how it was directly relevant for the bigger vision for Proxi. A mentor told me that my personal story matters, and leaning into it, instead of out of it, is where I’ll connect with people the most.

“Write it down” — I’m one of those people who carries around a lot of ideas in my head all the time. I can’t do anything without analyzing what is going on and taking mental notes. When I first started Proxi, this habit was fine, though the mental notepad got really really long. The challenge came, though, when we started hiring our first developers and team members. As you can imagine, carrying around all the visions for the company in my head wasn’t smart when working with a team. With the encouragement of a mentor, I started writing down as much as I could — trying to get all of those ideas and knowledge out of my head. It is still a skill that I have to practice and get better at, but I see the value already from using these written notes to make sure everyone is on the same page.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Next, we are building out ways for local experts and content creators to reap value from their maps. We’re helping them with advertising and affiliate linking. Their knowledge and experience is more valuable and more trusted than sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, and we want to make sure they are compensated for that.

We’re also building out better ways for consumers to interact with these maps, like saving, layering and sharing the maps so they have a personal guide at their fingertips.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

At the moment, funding and childcare are foremost on my mind. The vast majority of the funders out there are men. Yet we know that women often do the most planning for what they will do on weekends and on trips. Women are the ones who lean into local guides and expertise the most, often as part of the invisible labor that they do around the house. This means that some men may not see the value that we are bringing to consumers.

The second is childcare. We know how much damage the pandemic has done to women. As I answer this, our three full-time team leads are dealing with no childcare due to COVID. My daycare is closed because of cases and Chelsey’s nanny has COVID. We know that women often do the majority of work picking up that slack.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

When we were first starting Proxi I discovered the StartUp podcast which walks through the experience of starting Gimlet. I actually was listening to the podcast at the same time as I was going through my first fundraising attempt with Proxi (then Map Your Idea). I think the podcast did a really good job of normalizing and making apparent some of the invisible challenges of starting a company. I would encourage anyone who’s thinking they might go on this company building path to listen to season one. One of the best parts about it was listening to the host totally botch their first pitch with a VC investor. It was so relatable.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I really wish that we could find ways for people to better connect and know their local physical communities that keeps what’s good about social media–and resets all the bad. There’s a lot of good that’s come from online communities, but there’s nothing quite like the physical feeling of spatial belonging. (Though I know that’s a lot harder for a lot of people now.) I wish there was a way to create a stronger sense of spatial & neighborhood community. I want to find ways to augment the progress that we’ve made in online communities with in real life experiences and recommendations that empower local communities, local businesses, and local charities.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I can’t remember where I first heard it, but at one point I had heard the quote “Become comfortable with discomfort” and it has stuck with me for many years. As you can tell from my background, I’ve spent much of my adult life switching professions and throwing myself into new challenges. Sometimes this can be frustrating, and I think “What’s wrong with me that I can’t just chill for a moment?” But it is also what has made me successful and helped me develop into the expert that I am today. If I’m not drowning in what I need to learn next, then I know that I’m not pushing myself enough. I truly believe that the second you stop being willing to be a beginner at something is the moment that you stop learning and growing.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow me on line on Twitter @MelindaMcClure and you can follow proxi on Instagram at @proxico. We’d love for you to head to our website and make your own map for your community or local area. I think you’ll love it!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Female Disruptors: Melinda Haughey Of Proxi On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Kalliope Amorphous of Black Baccara On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up…

Female Disruptors: Kalliope Amorphous of Black Baccara On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Trust your inner voice and the lessons that your life has given you. Trust your own power. If you are still young and you are having a hard time doing that, it does get better. As we get older, we learn to trust our inner voices and our own power more and more. I have never felt more comfortable in my own wisdom than I have since I hit my mid-forties.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kalliope Amorphous.

Kalliope is a multidisciplinary artist whose primary focus is visual and olfactory art. She is the founder of Black Baccara, an indie perfume house specializing in creative handmade fragrances. Her artisan perfumes can be found on her website at http://www.blackbaccaraoils.com

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I have worked in visual art for the past decade while also running all aspects of my perfume house, Black Baccara. The themes in my visual art mirror those in my olfactory art and vice versa.I began working in olfactory art around 2007 because I’m fascinated by anything that can capture memories and evoke nostalgia.

here isn’t a medium that can do that better than scent, so I dove into learning anything and everything I could about the art of perfumery. It’s a complicated art form that requires a lot of education, expense, and experimentation, and I studied for years before I brought my first fragrance public. When I felt confident in my skills in perfumery, I began thinking about forming my own perfume house, and Black Baccara was born.

At first, it was difficult for me to balance my career in visual art with founding a perfume house. Still, I have managed to find a good balance over the years, though Black Baccara takes up the bulk of my time since it’s grown beyond my wildest dreams, particularly in the past few years.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

The work that I do in perfumery might be considered the antithesis of mainstream perfume, and I fully embrace the role of a perfumer who is trying to create new work that defies the monotony of department store perfumes. Rather than being status symbols or comfortable scents for everyone can lean into, my fragrances are harbingers of individuality and a unique sense of self-expression for people who have had a hard time finding fragrances that fit that bill for them within mainstream perfumery. I have fifteen years of experience studying perfumery and crafting fragrances, but I’m also not afraid to break the rules when it comes to formulating. Perfume and music have always gone hand in hand for me. When I’m formulating, I almost always see an olfactory composition musically. Using the music metaphor, my fragrances walk in the avant-garde and experimental realm rather than the top 40. My fragrances are for people who don’t want to wear what everyone else is wearing.

The fragrance industry has long been dominated by primarily white male perfumers. As a multiracial, female owned, LGBTQ owned perfume house, my work is naturally coming from a different place. I think when my demographic holds space in an industry that historically has not been comprised of people like us, that in itself is a disruptive act.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In perfumery, there are so many mistakes you can make when you are first starting out. Even if you are a skilled perfumer, you’ll still encounter interesting things in your day to day experiments. Many of them might end up as happy accidents, but many can also end in disaster. There were many humorous results when I first began working with aroma chemicals and trying to craft unique or specific accords. I remember once spending an entire month trying to perfect an accord that was supposed to smell like vinyl. It didn’t smell quite right, but I felt like maybe after maceration and a few additions, I could get it where it needed to be.

Two months later, after adding several more components, I got carried away with adjustments, and it ended up smelling precisely like new tires. It was such a dead ringer it was hilarious. But, unfortunately, there isn’t a market for a new tires perfume. The lesson I learned is to always expect the unexpected.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

There isn’t a person because I did not have any help or support to get where I am. Art has always sustained me and kept me going in the face of a lot of trauma and adversity, and I recognize that I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to turn it into two successful career paths. I haven’t had any support from family, I don’t have parents, and I don’t have a big social circle like I did when I was younger. Any success I have has been through my own determination to overcome and heal myself through art. It has not been easy by any means, and rarely a day goes by that I am not amazed and grateful that I am safe and thriving.

Some people come from nothing and pull themselves up on their own without any support. I wasn’t sure how to answer this question, but I am answering honestly, and I think people should know that there’s no shame in admitting you haven’t had a support system.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I think it’s always positive to disrupt an industry that might be clinging to antiquated values or ways of operating. The old ways are dying for so many industries, and it’s time to either move into a more inclusive space or be left behind. For example, I am one of many who believe that fragrance descriptors and names like “oriental” and “gypsy” need to end. The beauty industry, in particular the fragrance industry, should be evolving in its approach to language and culture. Disrupting any industry that is antiquated in either in its lack of diversity and inclusion, or via its marketing language, is always a positive in my opinion.

As for “not so positive” disruption, the first thing that comes to mind is giant corporations harming small businesses and artists. Big box stores and technology have combined to disrupt retail and how we think of shopping and many consumers are growing to expect fast, throwaway items. Instant gratification and 48-hour shipping times are convenient, but at what cost? It’s not only harmful to the environment; it’s ultimately harmful to artists and anyone who makes handmade items.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

I don’t have any examples of this, because going back to the earlier question of support and mentorship, I haven’t had any. So, when I get asked questions like this, I always come up empty even though I would very much like to find some words of wisdom to share.

I can’t be the only one who struggles with questions like this, so I will use this as an opportunity to tell those who are on a journey and don’t have support that it’s perfectly okay to travel that road on your own. When it comes to entrepreneurship and small business, it has become sort of a myth that everyone has a bunch of hands (or at least some hands) propping them up and offering advice and guidance. Not everyone has support, family, or even a large social circle to draw from.

It’s okay to not have a mentor or people to turn to for advice. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have that, but it’s not a flaw and it’s not something that should hold you back.

Trust your inner voice and the lessons that your life has given you. Trust your own power. If you are still young and you are having a hard time doing that, it does get better. As we get older, we learn to trust our inner voices and our own power more and more. I have never felt more comfortable in my own wisdom than I have since I hit my mid-forties.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Right now I am working on exposing the insidiousness of corporations that try to harm small business and artists through overreaching intellectual property law, in particular through what is known as “trademark bullying.” Trademark bullying is when a trademark owner uses overly aggressive tactics to harass or intimidate someone beyond what the scope of IP law allows. It’s usually a David vs. Goliath situation, wherein a large corporate entity with unlimited financial and legal resources tries to bully a smaller entity that doesn’t have the same resources.

I was recently targeted by the luxury crystal brand Baccarat who owns the trademark for Baccarat Rouge 540. They have argued that there could be customer confusion between them and myself based on our names and the things we sell. Of course, this is all ridiculous, because we couldn’t be any more dissimilar in both name, customer base, and the types of things we sell. So, I am fighting them, and in the process of fighting them I am trying to bring awareness to this issue.

Large corporations stealing from artists and trying to bully artists out of business isn’t anything new, but I would like for more artists to understand the power play, stand up to them, and not fear them. If we don’t stand up to them, or at the very least expose them, they will continue to try to destroy the art world and the world of handmade with impunity.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

I think it’s the same in every industry. We aren’t always taken as seriously, even when we might be making similar innovations or sending the same message as our male counterparts. We definitely don’t get the media coverage that men do, and so we don’t have the same visibility, or worse, we are rendered invisible within certain industries. As someone who has been very vocal in speaking out against injustice, I have also learned that nothing will ensure that someone tries to shut you up faster than to be a woman speaking the truth loudly. So, if you are a woman and you are doing something disruptive and you are doing it loudly, you have to anticipate that there will be something or someone that tries to stop it.

One of the things I have also noticed is that a woman who projects confidence in her work might often be deemed aggressive or too much whereas a man projecting the same confidence isn’t questioned at all. I see this a lot in almost every arts-related industry. Male confidence and ego and female confidence and ego are perceived and accepted differently. It’s two different worlds.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

There is a podcast that has literally had a deep impact on my thinking, because it has allowed me to fall asleep when I can’t. I am an insomniac and I also have a circadian rhythm disorder that is constantly trying to reverse my sleep schedule. I joke that I have the sleep schedule of a vampire, but it really is a difficult disorder to live with, because sometimes I will wake up for the day at midnight and go to bed for the night at 11 in the morning.

The podcast is called Sleep With Me by Drew Ackerman. He creates these surreal, stream of consciousness stories based on things like nostalgia, childhood memories, and his own fictional stories, which he reads in a very monotone yet soothing voice. It’s the one podcast I turn to when I can’t sleep, and it always helps relax my mind, even if I don’t ultimately end up falling asleep. One of my favorite episodes he did was where he got ahold of an HBO TV Guide from the 1980s and read it for over an hour. He also has a series where he just reads the Trader Joe’s catalog. It’s all perfect for a mind that is constantly contemplating very intense things and really needs to unwind into something surreal yet simple.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

There are so many crucial movements right now, so I’m not sure I can choose between all of the issues that are important to me. Black Lives Matter, LGBT+ rights, indigenous rights, climate awareness; these are all issues that center very strongly in my life. I suppose all of these issues connect in a way. In my dream world, maybe I would start a movement of accountability where humans face up to the damage they have done and begin to heal from there.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

There is one line that I think of almost all of the time: “Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice.” It’s not your typical life lesson sort of quote, but it is for me. It’s from a poem by Louise Gluck called The Wild Iris. The poem itself is about rebirth, but it has layers upon layers of meaning and metaphor.

For me, it is a reminder of having survived physical death as well as the deaths of loved ones. It is also a reminder of ego death, which I experienced many years ago, and the way that sense of oblivion influences the way I perceive things to this day. In so many ways, I feel like I have returned from oblivion to find a voice, and it is important for me to remember this in order to stay centered in a state of gratitude.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/blackbaccaraperfume/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Female Disruptors: Kalliope Amorphous of Black Baccara On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Melissa Reinking of Extend On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your…

Female Disruptors: Melissa Reinking of Extend On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

There are three phrases that have become operating principles for me throughout my career. I learned first, “put yourself on the edge,” early on in my career when I felt the thrill and saw the growth by tackling new, interesting challenges. The second piece of advice would be “If you’re not failing now and again, you’re not pushing the envelope.” This statement reminds me to take every opportunity to learn what’s working and what’s not. Knowing what doesn’t work and why is just as important as knowing what is working. And then of course, last but not least, is to always be a student to your customers. You should listen, learn, and react to their needs. From start-ups to established businesses, these words of advice have served me well.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Reinking.

Melissa Reinking is the Vice President of Consumer Marketing at Extend. A longtime marketing executive, Melissa has an exceptional track record of building products and experiences that consumers love. Her passion: transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

For as long as I can remember, I have been working in eCommerce in one form or another. It was a natural fit for me because I have always had a desire to build great — not merely good — experiences for consumers. Throughout my career, I have always tried to remember to listen to what customers need and put those interests first.

After 20 years of leading both start-up and established organizations to build, innovate, and reach underserved consumers, I think my favorite part is seeing how fast the industry can change, how it lends itself to disruption and experimentation.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Everything about Extend is disruptive. We’re completely reimagining the antiquated product protection industry with a digitally native approach that makes the customer “The North Star.” Our API-first solution allows any merchant, of any size, to offer their customers protection plans or extended warranties at checkout — a capability previously only available to the world’s largest retailers. This is an incredibly valuable way for merchants not only to increase revenue, but build loyalty and long-term value, while delivering a seamless and even elegant end-to-end experience for their customers. There are no gotchas, no confusing terms and conditions to parse.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Early in my career, I was leading a small team in market evaluation and competitive customer overlaps. Asked to give a presentation on our findings on a short deadline, we worked feverishly on our analysis, but towards the end of the day noticed a big “watch out” in our work that upended our conclusions and required pulling an “all-nighter” to prepare for the presentation. Sound familiar? Yes, I’m guessing many of you can relate. Even though we were working on a tight timeline, we could have caught the issue earlier if we wouldn’t have been so far down in the details. This taught me very early on how to balance the big picture, an important lesson I teach my teams to this day.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

There are a myriad of people that have influenced me over the years and I have been lucky to have many wonderful mentors. But two stand out: my mother and grandmother. I am the daughter and granddaughter of two very hardworking individuals. My mom was a trailblazer in corporate America; she taught me anything is possible with grit and hard work, which pushed me to get where I am today.

My grandmother, who studied Chemistry at the college-level only seven years after women won the right to vote, taught me to step outside my comfort zone and follow my passion, whether or not it was socially acceptable, but because I believed in it. The values she instilled in me have guided me throughout my career.

It’s why, when I was about 20 years old, I hopped in the car and drove 1,500 miles for an internship. Three moves and three years later with the same company, I learned a whole lot about eCommerce, entrepreneurship, innovation, and consumer marketing, among many other things. It set a pattern: over the years I have kept pushing myself to the edge, where I learned the most. That’s been true outside of the office, as well, such as when my husband and I took a 4,000-mile, six-month sailing trip through Pacific Mexico and the Sea of Cortez. It taught me so much, including how to react in circumstances where you have little control.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Offering underserved markets better solutions is always a positive. Extend is undeniably creating a better customer experience, while driving revenue for merchants. It’s why the company, which hit unicorn status in just two years, continues to show rapid growth, with more than 600 merchants. Tesla’s innovations around customer experience are another great example. As is the way Airbnb changed how we think about hospitality. Disruption is negative when it fails to consider the consumer and what the market demands, when it’s simply driven by the desire for profit.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

There are three phrases that have become operating principles for me throughout my career. I learned first, “put yourself on the edge,” early on in my career when I felt the thrill and saw the growth by tackling new, interesting challenges. The second piece of advice would be “If you’re not failing now and again, you’re not pushing the envelope.” This statement reminds me to take every opportunity to learn what’s working and what’s not. Knowing what doesn’t work and why is just as important as knowing what is working. And then of course, last but not least, is to always be a student to your customers. You should listen, learn, and react to their needs. From start-ups to established businesses, these words of advice have served me well.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We have a lot in the pipeline. Given that we’re just getting started here at Extend, there are many opportunities to continue to innovate and provide additional value to our customers. All I can say now is stay tuned!

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

For women founders, securing buy-in and funding for disruptive ideas can definitely be a challenge. I have found that being able to project confidence, drive, enthusiasm and clearly articulate the vision is essential to breaking down some of the barriers that exist. The increase in female venture capitalists has been a boon for women founders, but we definitely still have a way to go.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

Just one?!

I’m always looking for inspiration and wisdom. These are a few of my recent discoveries:

  • Believe It, by Jamie Kern Lima, which explores how we react in times of uncertainty. It’s about acting from a place of belief in yourself rather than fear. As Lima puts it, “Champions aren’t made when the game is easy.”
  • Think Again, by Adam Grant, which encourages readers to approach challenges with a sense of curiosity and openness, which in turn allows us to find opportunities for innovation. The essential quote here is: “Knowing what you don’t know opens the mind to rethinking.”

A personal story, or bit of advice, would be, don’t get too attached to your ideas. The practice of rethinking perspectives and putting the customer at the center has always allowed me to find opportunities.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

The “Pay it Forward” movement.

Through my networks over the years, I have been introduced to inspiring female founders. I tried to do the same by mentoring a female founder just starting out. I know first-hand how lonely it can be as an entrepreneur. Having a thought partner, someone to bounce ideas off of, who will be honest with you, is essential. Imagine a world where everyone operated this way and the positive influence it would have on everyone. Wouldn’t that be great?

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Do what you love.” For me that’s excelling in my job, my life, and coming through for the people around me. Doing what you love will not make life easier, especially when there are big goals and hard challenges. But it will make you more disciplined and more aware of the joy in life.

Some others that are essential to me include:

“We are all better together.”

“Surround yourself with great people.”

“Inspire, challenge and bring out the best in one another.”

Magic happens for me when I can marry innovation and disruption with doing good for this world! We all get to choose how we spend our time. Whether it’s creating delightful customer experiences or developing brands and products, I look to do everything in ways that are truly better than the status quo. It could be building a new brand/product line or building new ways to deliver unexpected delights to merchants and consumers.

And when I’m assembling a team, I think about how our skills will complement one another. I keep in mind how we will collaborate, inspire, challenge, and learn from one another. No one is successful alone! This has a magical, multiplicative effect on what we bring to the market.

How can our readers follow you online?

Linkedin

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Female Disruptors: Melissa Reinking of Extend On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Maiya Keeling of Pillar On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support…

Women In Wellness: Maiya Keeling of Pillar On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Practice Graditude — Becoming aware of the goodness that exists around you does wonders. Being able to write down the things for which we are grateful shifts the focus from what you are lacking to what you possess.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Maiya Keeling, Pillar National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach.

Maiya Keeling is a Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist through the American College of Sports Medicine, and a nationally board certified helath and wellness coach (NBC-HWC) through the National Board of Medical Examiners. She earned a BS in Exercise Sport Science from Elon University and then went on to pursue a MS in Clinical Exercise Physiology from the University of North Carolina- Charlotte upon completing her service in the military. Maiya is passionate about using her skills and experience to serve the community and encourage others to lead healthy lives.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I grew up just north of Chicago and from the time I was little, I knew I wanted to be in the medical field. In highschool I gravitated towards the health sciences. In college I developed a passion for health and wellness and really discovered the benefits of exercising consistently. In the military, I spent most of my time working in the hospital setting and saw first hand in the patients I cared for the consequences of living an unhealthy lifestyle. Treating patients with chronic disease inspired me to set my focus on prevention. I wanted to be able to educate people about lifestyle modification and the power that comes from being one’s own health advocate. My love for exercise and my skills in health coaching allow me to create space for people to share what stands in the way of achieving their health goals. We work together to make a plan to move forward towards wellness.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

In my role as a health coach I work with individuals whom have lost their joy in life and feel stuck in their health due to chronic disease and pain. One indivual I worked with was referred by the doctor to manage hypertension, weight, pain and a host of other ailments. Upon meeting with that individual, I learned that what mattered most was bowling. Meeting the individual exactly where they were in our coaching sessions allowed them the opportunity to focus on what it would take to return to bowling. In just a few sessions, this individal had lost weight, lowered blood pressure and had reported feeling more joy in life. What’s more, they were able to return to bowling and even made it to the national championship that year! It reinforced the fact that in order for life change to take place, one has to do their own discovery and find their own motivation instead of being handed an order to change.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I was first starting, I underestimated the power of silence. It’s often uncomfortable to sit in silence- especially for an extrovert like me! Learning to become comfortable in silence affords the individual I’m working with the opportunity to sit with their own thoughts. It allows me to truly listen and engage instead of trying to fill the space with my voice or attempt to “fix” a problem. I’ve come to recognize what’s being said through facial expressions and body language even when no words are spoken.

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

The work I do as a health coach impacts people on a deep and personal level. Those whom have lost joy or feel they have lost control come to a place where they feel empowered to make changes. These changes allow them to become better versions of themselves, and in many cases it gives them the confidence to do things they have never tried before. I’ve seen generations within a family expericnce change through the small steps made by one individal. They discover the courage to break cycles of disordered eating, disease, tobacco use and more!

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

Tweak 1 -Practice self care

Learn to be a little selfish. It’s said that you can’t pour from an empty cup. Examine what is needed to “fill” you up so you can then pour out to others.

Tweak 2- Look For opportunities to move

Discover where, when and how you can move your body during the day. Maybe it looks like salsa dancing while brushing your teeth , or maybe doing swats or arm cirlces while waiting on the microwave to heat your food.

Tweak 3- Breathe!

Don’t underestimate the power of your breath. You can decrease stress levels and blood pressure with a few intentional deep breaths.

Tweak 4- See food as fuel

Change the way you think about food by recognizing it either does something for FOR or To you.

Tweak 5- Practice Graditude

Becoming aware of the goodness that exists around you does wonders. Being able to write down the things for which we are grateful shifts the focus from what you are lacking to what you possess.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I believe that focusing on self-care as a movement will have the greatest impact on our overall wellness as a people. We have to acknowledge all that we have been through in the past couple of years, and the impact it has had on our mental, emotional and physical health. Most people don’t know how to care for themselves or be kind to themselves. It’s hard to have compassion for others when you can’t show yourself compassion. Learning to practice self care shows others it is ok to do so as well.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

  1. I wish someone would have told me that you can’t help someone who doesn’t want help. I can’t care more about someone’s health than they do. I can’t do the work for them, nor should I try.
  2. People know what to do. As a coach, I don’t need to give them the answers and they don’t need me to fix them. Self discovery is a powerful tool!
  3. Those closest to you will believe in you and invest in you. Knowing your worth is key and you don’t need to discount yourself.
  4. In order to make the biggest impact sometimes you have to make your own way. I spent many hours over many years doing what I loved by helping people but not feeling fulfilled professionally. Instead of waiting for advancement opportunites working for someone else I decided to take a leap of faith and create something of my own.
  5. You don’t have to be good at everything! I’ve learned my strengths and weaknesses professionally over the years. If I want to be successful I have to also recognize when I need to outsource a task or project so that I can free up time and energy to do what I do best.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

The topic of mental health is dearest to me right now. I have seen close friends, family members and patients really struggle through the current events of the pandemic, racial tension, political divides and more. Distigmatizing therapy and mental health services will take time but it is very much necessary. It all circles back to self care and learning that it’s ok to say we are not ok!

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

Stay connected with me through www.withpillar.com and instagram.com/withpillar

Thank you for these fantastic insights!


Women In Wellness: Maiya Keeling of Pillar On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Anne Silsby of Act of Wellness On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help…

Women In Wellness: Anne Silsby of Act of Wellness On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Take care of your skin. A simple rule of thumb is cleanse, treat and protect. Cleansing the skin and regular exfoliation will help keep your skin clean, soft and smooth. Protecting your skin with SPF is so incredibly important to protect it from sun damage. SPF helps protect skin from cancers and other skin aging that is caused by too much sun exposure.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anne Silsby.

Anne Silsby is the co-founder of Act of Wellness, a new indie wellness brand launched in 2021. She’s worked as both a brand expert and product developer for numerous top skincare and wellness lines. One thing about the brands she loved working for most, they all inspired true connection and belonging — and sparked genuine joy.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve spent my professional career as a marketer working for several well-know brands. My favorite part about marketing and branding is getting to know the customer and how they interact both emotionally and physically with the brand and the product. When I started my career, I worked for a baby products company and it was so rewarding to be a tiny bit involved in such a beautiful and emotional moment in these customer’s lives. That started the spark in me that I wanted to work for brands that really had a true connection with the customer. Most recently, I worked for a wellness company that supported thousands of individuals who were working to improve their own wellness. It was so incredible to experience this sense of community and belonging that was brought together by a brand, the product and the consumer. Over the past few years I was focused on my own wellness journey and it was that experience, plus all the learning from my career that inspired me to create and launch my own brand, Act of Wellness.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

My business partner, Michael and I have been working on our company for the past several years. We had a roadmap with products and launch timing planned. We hit two major roadblocks before our company had launched. The first challenge was we started working with a manufacturer that we were very excited to partner with. More than six months into the partnership, we were informed that the partner would have to put our work on hold because they had staffing limitations and they could not give us a timeframe on when they could resume our work. This stopped us in our tracks — the decision to stick with them or find another partner would significantly impact our plan. We experienced a range of emotions, but ultimately decided to move on to another partner.

The second interesting event was the start of the pandemic as we were getting ready to launch Act of Wellness. We were facing so many operational and financial decisions at time with so much uncertainty going on in the world. We had recovered from the manufacturing set back only to have another hurdle placed in front of us. We did decide it would be best to reduce the number of products we launched and to start with a smaller quantity because we had no idea how consumers would be interacting with our brand and product during this challenging time.

The main takeaway was that we easily could have walked away from following our dreams because we had some pretty major unknowns that we were faced with. We felt defeated before we even launched, but we knew that there were people who needed to hear our message and encouragement to take small steps journeys towards wellness and happiness.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

There hasn’t been a big mistake so to speak thus far. There have been a lot of things learned and modified as we grow. One thing we talk a lot about is not falling into the comparison game. The beauty and wellness space is very competitive, there are new brands launching all the time. There have definitely been moments where we ask ourselves how did they get that many followers so fast, how did get that much press already, etc. The lesson here is we are on our own journey, things will be different and on different timing. It’s all ok and most of the time happens for a reason.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

What makes Act of Wellness stand out is the mission in combination with our product performance. Our message is really simple, focus on taking small steps towards wellness and happiness each day. So many people try to make huge changes or too many changes at once, this often doesn’t work out in the end. People get frustrated and burnt out. Through our own personal journeys to wellness, we realized the importance of just taking small steps forward and in doing so found more happiness.

Our experience led us to dig deeper into how we influence our own happiness receptors, through products combined with life style choices. We developed our line of skincare products that have been formulated to connect our inner and outer self that make us feel happy. The skin is the largest organ so it is so important that we take care of it. Our first product, Euphoric Exfoliation is a 2-step skin exfoliator + serum that delivers results you can see and feel after just 1 use! We have heard from our customers about the compliments they receive from their dermatologists, estheticians and friends about how great their skin looks. It’s a double reward because skin looks and feels great on the outside, but those compliments release dopamine that helps positively impact your mood from the inside.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

The most exciting thing we are working on is how we are reaching customers with our message and products. Over the past couple of years and certainly due to the pandemic, where people are shopping and being entertained is changing. Physical stores will always be important, but we think online social selling will play a big role in future. We have some exciting partnerships we are working on that focuses on where we are reaching people with our products.

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

If we could accomplish one thing, it would be to help people take care of themselves. Taking care of our bodies including the products we use, the sleep and activity we get — all play a factor in how we hope to inspire people to make their personal wellness a priority. We hope to create a community both in-person and online where people can support each other and share ideas.

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

  1. Take care of your skin. A simple rule of thumb is cleanse, treat and protect. Cleansing the skin and regular exfoliation will help keep your skin clean, soft and smooth. Protecting your skin with SPF is so incredibly important to protect it from sun damage. SPF helps protect skin from cancers and other skin aging that is caused by too much sun exposure.
  2. Try to get enough sleep. I’m not a sleep expert but I try to go to bed and get up at approximately the same time each day. I charge my devices in another room so I’m not tempted to delay my bedtime or scroll in the middle of the night if I cannot sleep. I also try to keep the room dark and cool, these things help me sleep more soundly.
  3. Get moving (and into nature if possible). The first part is about moving our bodies. It doesn’t always have to be continual for 30 minutes or hard core exercise. Sometimes I turn on a couple songs and dance with my kids. I also have found that I can fit in several 10 minute walks throughout the day instead of 30 minutes straight. Part two of get moving is to get into nature if accessible. Nature energizes me both physically and mentally. There is so much beauty outside to be explored and I believe spending time moving in nature spills into so many more aspects in our wellness.
  4. Pay attention to your body after you eat. How does your body feel? A few years back I started removing meat from my diet when I realized it made me feel sluggish and not so great. As I transitioned away from meat, I had more energy and felt much better after I ate. That was my experience and everyone will feel different based on what they eat. It is to illustrate how listening and adjusting what I ate and how much based on how my body felt after eating.
  5. Get an accountability partner. I love Dr. Mark Hyman’s quote that, “Friend power is so much more powerful that willpower.” An accountability partner is someone who is there to support you, cheer you on and go on the wellbeing journey with you. I’m very lucky that I have several accountability partners that I rely on that have absolutely supported me in my own wellness journey.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

If I could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most people it would be changing what we eat. I believe most people are doing the best they can, but there are a lot of dynamics in today’s household that put people in a position to sacrifice healthier food choices for the sake of cost, convenience and commercialization. It’s a complex topic, but people need to demand more of food companies. I see a lot public figures raising awareness and taking some of the food companies head on, this is encouraging to see more accountability demanded when it comes to public health.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

  1. Expect the time it will to accomplish certain goals to be longer than planned. You have a timeline, but not everyone else is on your same timeline so it timing will take longer so you will learn when to push forward and when you will need to wait.
  2. You will really be pushed outside of your comfort zone. Whether learning a new part of the business or making important decisions, you will be uncomfortable at times.
  3. When you are told no, don’t get discouraged. Either the timing or opportunity is not right at that moment. It will be right someplace else so keep pushing.
  4. Trust your instincts and don’t force decisions you know deep down are not right for the business. Sometimes you think you want or need an opportunity so bad that you are sacrificing somewhere else. If you give yourself some time to reflect, you really do know what is the best decision to take.
  5. Find mentors and utilize their expertise. Mentors are great sounding boards and often have had similar experiences that can help guide you.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

Wow, it’s hard to pick just one because they are all important. I would say mental health is probably the most important to me. It is dearest to me because I’m a mom and I know how important it is to my pre-teen and teenage children. There are so many factors that can induce mental health decline and when mental health suffers, so does overall health. In our household, we do our best to protect our mental health and when we have had challenges, we sought therapy which helped us so much.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

Learn more about Act of Wellness at www.actofwellness.com and follow us on Facebook / Instagram @actofwellness

Thank you for these fantastic insights!


Women In Wellness: Anne Silsby of Act of Wellness On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht of Napa Valley Fumé: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started…

Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht of Napa Valley Fumé: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

This goes for all startups: Make sure you NEVER run out of cash! The cannabis industry is a roller coaster ride because it is so immature. You need loyal investors who will go the distance and plenty of working capital. We’ve had close calls and I can’t wait until we are 100% self-sufficient (should be later this year!). All along the way you cannot give up hope and you must stay focused on fundraising.

As part of my series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business” I had the pleasure of interviewing Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht.

Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht currently serves as the Managing Member and Head of Compliance for Napa Valley Fumé, LLC, a vertically integrated startup in the legal cannabis space. Elissa served as the founding Chief Operating Officer at fumé, and now turns to part-time work, focused on fundraising, business development and licensing for the company.

Elissa is a self-proclaimed start-up junkie and has over twenty-five years of experience launching and operating both proprietary businesses and partnerships. Her first entrepreneurial venture began in 1994 when she opened a Mexican restaurant in Barcelona, Spain. After returning to the Bay Area in 1998 she opened two more restaurants in San Francisco (Vinga and Che).

In 2001 she co-founded Chispa, an Event Production, Marketing and Management consultancy group. While working as the Executive Producer or Conference Manager she produced events ranging from CEO level executive summits to full scale industry trade shows. In addition to restaurants and event management Elissa has deep experience in the wine industry, having served as co-CEO of Belvedere Winery and was VP at the online Direct to Consumer play, TastingRoom.com. Prior to fumé she was co-Founder of NewCo, a disruptive business conference model, in partnership with John Battelle. Company culture and providing a safe and enriching workplace has always been a passion and priority for Elissa throughout her entire career. In 2021 fumé received an industry award for Best Company to Work For, and here is the article that highlights this award. Elissa graduated from UC Berkeley in 1989, lives in the village at Sugar Bowl with her husband and they have three children. She served on the board of the Sugar Bowl Ski Team and Academy Foundation and is a passionate skier.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My first job out of college was in the corporate/Special Events planning world. In my interview I was asked: “what would you describe as a failure?”. I went on to describe how I failed Spanish not once but twice in college, only to finally pass, but that I still didn’t speak Spanish. My boss, who was my first mentor and later a business partner made sure that I took Spanish classes and took the time to travel to Spain, because she was on a mission to get me to move to Barcelona in time to get a job during the 1992 Olympics. She went as far as discouraging me from taking a promotion from our company in Hawaii! In the end I did move to Barcelona and had an almost yearlong job with NBC. It was in that role that I started cooking Mexican food for the Americans who didn’t get why they got “an egg thing” when they ordered a tortilla, and why nothing was spicy (!!). I attracted the attention of my boss at NBC who said, “write a business plan for opening up your Mexican restaurant here and I’ll invest”. That was my very first start up! After that experience I never looked back, and never worked in a straight salaried position again.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The story that others find the most interesting was related to the start up in Barcelona. We were negotiating for the lease of our desired location with the heirs of the guy who had died in the bar. These sisters had fancy lawyers with offices on the Passeig de Gracia, and after we negotiated the deal with them, the lawyers explained to us that there would also be a “Dinero B” payment: in cash. As gringas, we had no idea how you physically made this payment, so we asked. “Well, before the meeting you’ll meet me in front of the building”. Sure enough, the slick suited lawyer was there, in his dark glasses. “Do you have the money? If so, just put it in my briefcase”. We had an enormous panic attack after he said “Gracias” and took off… what if we were just ripped off!? But 30 minutes later we were all assembled with the sisters and the lawyers upstairs to sign all the documents. While surreal, this was how business was done in 1994 in Spain, pre-European Union.

As it turned out, our American investor was the snake in Barcelona, and long story short, he ended up locking me and my operational partner out and ignoring our 45% equity stake, because he could in Spain with 55%.

I learned the following important lessons:

  1. You need to take risks in order to get shit done, especially when you are in a foreign country. Be open to ideas that might seem crazy or outside your comfort zone.
  2. The real risks might be from the people you think you trust, who are on your team!
  3. Always ALWAYS have your own counsel/legal advice!

You don’t learn that stuff in Business School, that is for sure!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Well, not to dwell on my first start up, and it certainly was not funny to lose 45% equity stake in a restaurant that was spinning off cash and packed every night! The lesson was important though: when signing deals, term sheets or anything related to the project, make sure you have your own legal opinion, even if you think you can’t afford the time to slow down and do so, or the lawyers themselves. Find a friend, get crafty, get your own advice!

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’ve been focused on Napa Valley Fumé since August, 2017. What is exciting about cannabis startups, is that it is a startup in a startup industry! I have an amazing partner in Eric Sklar and with his experience related to policy and government affairs, we spend time in a very grass-roots/advocacy capacity. There is a lot that needs to be fixed from a regulatory standpoint here in CA, and of course Federal Legalization still must happen! It is exciting that we’ve made so much progress, and there is a lot of work that still needs to be done to open this industry, which provides many jobs. We also strongly believe in the social justice impact the cannabis industry stands to make, hopefully reversing all the wrongs of the war on drugs.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I’ve mentioned my first “real” boss, and later partner, Louise Glasgow. She is really the reason why I strayed from a “traditional” career path and on to being a serial startup gal. I’ve learned something from each partner or colleague at every start up I’ve had the pleasure of working on.

This industry is young dynamic and creative. Do you use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?

It is tough in cannabis, given all the restrictions related to marketing placed on this industry. My partner and our President Ian Hackett was our CMO. All the marketing plans and brand development work is his focus.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the Cannabis industry? Can you share 3 things that most concern you?

3 things that most excite:

  1. We are only just beginning to see the very exciting roll-out of new products and experiences that this plant will bring to market! I believe it will revolutionize dieting, for example.
  2. The impact that the legal industry has made in the county where we have licenses is profound. We operate in Lake County, CA, which is the 4th poorest county in the country! Bringing well-paying jobs is just the beginning. The leaders in this industry are excited to work with local high schools, brining mentorship and training programs to the area. The positive energy and “give back” mentality of most leaders is awesome.
  3. Building a new industry is just plain old exciting. I’m sure Al Gore felt this way when he invented the internet… haha! Jokes aside, I think the legal cannabis industry is on par with Henry Ford’s invention and also has parallels with the technology industry’s birth.

3 Things Most Concerning:

  1. There is a “green rush”, and big business is pushing the cottage industry out. It is very sad to see the small growers and legacy players are in a very precarious situation right now, if they are already not dead and unwinding/un-wound. Here in CA Prop 64 really tried to give the legacy players a chance to start and get big enough before big business rushed in, but that plan isn’t working.
  2. There are certain legacy players and others who strongly believe this is a zero-sum game, and to succeed they must step on you and ensure that you fail. I HATE these types! I believe as the tide rises; all boats can float higher!
  3. There is a downside to science and labs re-creating what is found in a plant, in pursuit of new products and R&D. The plant in her natural form, outdoors and in her full 14’ glory is a site to be seen and enjoyed! I hope it doesn’t all become a pharma-play.

Can you share your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business”? Please share a story or example for each.

  1. If you don’t understand and, in your gut, feel that your security plan makes sense, re-do it! Security can feel scary, and you have real lives on the line! Almost a year into our operations we had a perpetrator hold up one of our employees at gun point. The hired security guard ran off, without his phone, so we did not even get a 911 call out of him! In the end, our staff person had ice in his veins and stayed calm, and our security set up meant that the perp could not see any product, and only saw all the cameras recording his face. He left with no product and there were no injuries.
  2. Related: really make sure your vendors/partners share your values, engage in your operations and treat their employees as you want your staff treated. We fired that security company the next morning and stepped up to a more expensive but rock-solid partner.
  3. This goes for all startups: Make sure you NEVER run out of cash! The cannabis industry is a roller coaster ride because it is so immature. You need loyal investors who will go the distance and plenty of working capital. We’ve had close calls and I can’t wait until we are 100% self-sufficient (should be later this year!). All along the way you cannot give up hope and you must stay focused on fundraising.
  4. “Nimble & Quick” is a requirement, and that is an understatement! There are so many opportunities in this start up industry, and you want to strike the right balance of “staying in your lane” vs “take advantage of opportunities as they arise”. Our mission and point of our spear has always been building a best-in-class portfolio of cannabis brands, products and experiences. But along the way, we had the opportunity to open and run delivery operations for Eaze. Seems like a pivot and/or a distraction, but in the end, it gave us access to the world’s biggest retail channels once we launched our 1st brand.
  5. Make sure your partners are aligned and can create your values, up front, before you begin. And always invest and keep focusing on company culture. As this is my 11th start up, it was not my first rodeo. So, I knew that I needed to start out with a solid Employee Handbook, that covered the legal requirements, but more importantly, set the tone for open communication, transparency and communicating our values. Prior to starting, me and the two co-founders created our values in a meeting that lasted no more than 2 hours. This is when I knew we had the important and up-front alignment, on which to build a great company.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

Company values and your Mission Statement cannot be after thoughts. You won’t have a company worth anything if you don’t start with these things. And your employees won’t know how and where to row if you don’t lead with these messages.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Well, the social justice movement as it is part of the newly legal start up industry in cannabis is in need of support on many fronts. We as a company are partners with Last Prisoner Project, for one example. So, I am not taking any claim for inspiring this movement, but we ALL need to get on board here. We need to get everyone still incarcerated for non-violent drug related charges out of jail and their sentences expunged. Ideally, this should go hand in hand with Federal legalization, so that this is not limited to a state-by-state movement.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

My personal LinkedIN profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elissa-hambrecht-7b3b54/

Company LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fume-brands

Company Instagram/LAKE GRADE brand: https://www.instagram.com/lakegrade

Company Instagram/fumé brand: https://www.instagram.com/enjoyfume/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Elissa Hagopian Hambrecht of Napa Valley Fumé: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Manisha Mittal On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s…

Women In Wellness: Manisha Mittal On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Practicing gratitude: Being thankful for what we have is a powerful way to balance emotional and mental health. Practice thanking someone everyday of your life, volunteer to help someone in need.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Manisha Mittal.

Dr. Manisha Mittal is an integrative rheumatologist and ayurvedic practitioner. She founded Moksha Holistic Center to empower and educate people to connect with the soul and enliven healing. She is the creator of Golden Ice-spice turmeric ice cream, featured on TV and wholefoods magazine. Dr. Mittal cohosts a wellness segment at the Central Valley Today show, has been featured by David Lynch foundation podcast on connecting Mind, Body & Soul.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I was a talkative and compassionate girl who loved nature and science. I liked playing Sherlock Holmes and solving puzzles and mysteries. I was always inspired by great leaders and scientists who wanted to bring positive change in the world.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

I was seeing a patient who had osteoarthritis, she had been taking anti-inflammatory medications with side effects. She was looking for natural solutions to manage her symptoms. When I shared about Turmeric- bright orange-yellow spice known for its anti-inflammatory benefits. She inspired me to start wellness classes educating people on holistic care. That was tipping point for me to carve out time to start a Wellness center. After one of my turmeric education classes, my patients inspired me to develop a palatable way to take turmeric. I collaborated with local dairy farmers to start Golden Ice-spice turmeric ice-cream. I listened to my patients and felt they are looking for alternatives to pharmaceuticals.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I assumed that everybody knows what they are doing and have their facts right. It turned out not true, most of the time to run a successful practice you want to set protocols in place and make sure everybody understands their expectations. They also need frequent reminders and dedicated team for running smooth operations.

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

As an integrative rheumatologist I understand firsthand, the significance of food and exercise for health. Most people assume this requires spending a lot of money. For empowering the community, I founded Moksha Holistic Center where I conduct wellness workshops on cooking, health benefits of spices and connecting with your local farming community. I hold joy of medicine workshops for physicians to prevent burnout and stress.

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

  1. Diet: With proper diet medicine is of no need, without proper diet medicine is of no use. It is best to eat in moderation according to your constitution. Eat local, seasonal, and fresh foods. You should cook most of your meals. This allows you to have better connection with food.
  2. Exercise: To be healthy you should exercise regularly low to moderate intensity aerobic exercise is good for most people. You don’t need intense competitive workouts to be healthy. A 30 min walk daily in nature is very beneficial. Key is to feel more energy after exercise not fatigued.
  3. Meditation: Connecting with yourself is a rejuvenating practice. If you are new to meditation, it does not have to be fancy, you just need to sit relaxed and close your eyes for a few minutes daily. Morning and evening times are best to do this.
  4. Body massage: before bathing use warm herbarized oil such as coconut oil, sesame oil, almond oil, or avocado oil for a head-to-toe massage. It is not only nourishing and soothing to your skin but supports gentle detox.
  5. Practicing gratitude: Being thankful for what we have is a powerful way to balance emotional and mental health. Practice thanking someone everyday of your life, volunteer to help someone in need.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Meditation is the number one thing that will benefit the entire world. It is an effortless and simple way to connect with yourself. It calms down sympathetic system and improves health and wellbeing. You feel more connected to mother nature and your community. It brings on a sense of unity in diversity.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

We all have a journey to take and a purpose in life. Finding that purpose can unlock the key to happiness. It is the experience that matters not the destination. I don’t think what works for someone will have similar result for another. Connect with yourself to know who you are and let that inner silence guide you.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

Things are more connected than we think.

How we feel affects how we see the world. A balanced outlook and mental health are much needed to appreciate the beauty in nature. When there is more anxiety and stress in the community it is difficult to appreciate aspects of sustainability, climate change and veganism.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

https://www.facebook.com/manishamittalmd/

moksha holistic center youtube

Thank you for these fantastic insights!


Women In Wellness: Manisha Mittal On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.