Month: January 2022

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Julia O’Mara of Pickle Poll On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Confidence is key. This point corresponds to the assumption that men are the ones in charge within STEM or Tech meetings. Your confidence will make others confident in you. It will also empower you to drive home your key points and reach your goals.

As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Julia O’Mara.

Julia O’Mara is the Co-Founder and Head of Growth of Pickle — a social commerce platform that combines the efficiency of online shopping with the social benefits of in-person shopping. She previously worked as a product manager at Blackstone, where she focused on creating data analytics and data visualization solutions for the fundraising teams. Prior to Blackstone, she studied Materials Science Engineering as well as Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania.

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

After graduating from Penn in May 2019, I moved right to New York City and started as an analyst at Blackstone. The beginning of my job was great and I learned a ton from my team and peers. Unfortunately, the pandemic started after only 9 months in the city, so I went back to Maryland to stay with my parents. Working from home was quite an adjustment and I definitely missed working with my colleagues in real life. Brian, my Blackstone co-worker at the time, told me a little bit about an idea (Pickle) he was working on and I was immediately interested. I started out helping with the design and a bit of the brainstorming, but before I knew it I became heavily involved with the company. I always thought I might get into the startup world one day because of how much I enjoyed my Entrepreneurship classes at Penn. I realized this was an incredible opportunity to make the startup jump, so in the spring of 2020, I left Blackstone and started working on Pickle as a full time co-founder.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

An interesting story that has happened to me since starting at Pickle was navigating one of my busiest days where I was wearing quite a few hats. We had just onboarded our summer interns and I had been working on my management experience. I was looking at my calendar and saw an absolutely booked day the next week. I remember getting a bit nervous about how packed it was going to be and if I would be able to manage it. This packed day finally came and I jumped into it. I started off the day doing some research on the social commerce market, moved onto rolling out a few influencer campaigns, negotiated a new influencer partner contract, conducted several user interviews, strategized some new features and enhancements with Brian, put together some marketing collateral and social media plans, filmed two TikToks, and then wrapped up the day with a presentation to a college entrepreneurship club. That was the day I remember realizing this is exactly what I want to do. Although it’s challenging to be a founder, it is incredibly rewarding and exciting to be such an integral part of a company. I look back at this day and think it’s funny that I was a bit nervous to accomplish it because this is how the majority of my days look now.

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?

One funny mistake I made pretty early into my time at Pickle was a classic “work from home” mistake. I had just finished some independent morning work and then had a call with our user acquisition and marketing team. This was an internal meeting, so naturally I was wearing an old college sweatshirt and a messy bun. When trying to join the Zoom meeting, I accidentally clicked on Brian’s personal meeting room link instead of my own (we used his so often it was saved in my notes). I then entered the middle of an intro investor call looking incredibly casual and confused. The investor was super nice about it and Brian used it as a good time to introduce his co-founder. I’m not really sure if the lesson learned is to either always look nice on Zoom or to always use the calendar invite instead of a saved Zoom link (probably the latter).

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

The name and logo … kidding! Our commerce-focused social graph makes Pickle a unique company because we are building a community that is truly centered around enhancing the online shopping experience. We tackle three essential groups of influence on Pickle. We give our users access to their trusted personal network, their favorite fashion/style influencers, and also larger scale style communities that consist of people with similar style preferences. Feedback and inspiration from these groups of people, allow users to feel confident in their purchase decisions and experience the valuable social interactions that occur within in-person shopping.

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

Yes! We’re currently building out a Discover page that better connects our users to other users with similar style preferences. This includes highlighting verified fashion influencers and their curated communities. These communities consist of users who love an influencer’s style and therefore share similar style preferences and fashion taste. One of the main benefits of these groups is that users can give and receive feedback at scale with other Pickle members who have relevant opinions. For example, if a user is looking to buy a dress for a formal event, they are able to get inspiration from an influencer’s community and also ask for their feedback around a few dress options. Access to these opinions is incredibly helpful to make confident purchase decisions and increase overall confidence when wearing that purchased item.

Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with the status quo regarding “women in STEM” until there doesn’t need to be that designation. There are incredible groups and programs for women in tech because we’re such a minority. In the future, I hope this designation won’t be as necessary because the field will be more equally distributed among both men and women. Changes need to start with early education around the STEM fields. Gender stereotypes around certain jobs and careers should be removed and both boys and girls should be equally educated about the industry and career opportunities.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest addressing this?

One of the first challenges that comes to mind is the assumption that the men are in charge in the room (or virtual room). This assumption definitely puts a woman in a more challenging spot when starting or leading a meeting. My recommendation is to immediately start/lead the small talk before diving into the meeting — this will help set the tone that you’re going to be leading the meeting.

Another challenge is walking the line of how assertive to be. Women can be perceived as rude if they are too assertive, but also perceived as a push-over if they aren’t assertive enough. Men don’t typically deal with this challenge and can be as assertive as they want. My recommendation here is to lean on the side of being more assertive than passive and pay close attention to the room as you are speaking. The real-time reactions and body language can help you navigate the best way to interact with your colleagues.

Finally, since women are often a minority in STEM fields, they are often in male dominated conversations that might be around topics they aren’t as familiar with. To give a personal example, when I was at Blackstone people in the office would often talk about football games from the weekend. Regardless of gender, I always want to be educated and contribute to a conversation, so I started every Monday morning running on the treadmill in front of a TV that showed all of the game highlights from the weekend. I was then able to contribute more in these conversations and enjoyed getting more knowledgeable about the season. I think leaning into some of these topics so you can connect better with colleagues is important regardless of who (men or women) are dominating the conversation.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?

One myth about being a woman in STEM is that our strengths are mainly in the academic area. We are assumed to be very smart and technical, but not necessarily social or business savvy. While everyone has their own personal strengths and weaknesses, many of us are talented within the STEM fields and can also lead a compelling presentation, network effectively, and strategize at the company level.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Confidence is key. This point corresponds to the assumption that men are the ones in charge within STEM or Tech meetings. Your confidence will make others confident in you. It will also empower you to drive home your key points and reach your goals.
2. Prioritize getting to know your team. I think women can often be excellent listeners and we should lean into that. Everyone likes to be heard and valued. As a leader at Pickle, I include personal check-ins or small talk at the beginning of most meetings to ensure I get to know my team at a deeper level and get a feel for how things are going outside of work.
3. Lead in a “come with me” style. Instead of telling someone what to do, try to work with them to get started on a new project or initiative. I am all for the “jump in the deep end” learning curve, but it’s important for team members to feel like they have the tools and confidence from leadership in order to learn to swim in the deep end.
4. Perception of your leadership is incredibly important. People often remember the negative or bad things that happen. As a leader, you’re automatically held to a higher standard and much more closely observed. For example, if you’re dealing with some tough personal stuff, it might be better to take a personal day or postpone a meeting than to come across as potentially unprofessional or unfocused.
5. Admit when you are wrong or made a mistake. Transparency from leadership promotes incredible trust among a team and this should be emphasized when something goes wrong or a mistake is made. Nobody likes to be wrong, but it’s better to readily admit it when you are. One example of this was when I was reviewing a design our intern had put together. We spent a good part of the meeting debating a UX component and ended up going with my side of the argument. I later did a bit more research and thinking and realized I was wrong. I quickly sent over a message to our intern that started with “I was wrong” and then went on to tell them we should go with their original UX design. My ownership of being wrong made it possible to keep a great design relationship moving forward — this ensured everyone was confident in sharing their opinions and feedback.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

My advice to other women leaders who are looking to help their team thrive is to carefully listen to their team and learn from them. I think all leaders always have room for improvement and the best way to do that is to listen to what the team needs. Do they need more instruction? Do they need focus time blocked off? Are they motivated right now or starting to feel burnt out? All of these questions are imperative to ensure a team is operating at its maximum potential. The best leaders I have worked with are extremely good at receiving feedback and implementing changes to improve their team’s experience. I also think it’s important to listen to your team passively — not just by listening to the answers of your questions. Pay attention to their actions and their overall morale. Someone who seems down at a team meeting might need a more personal one-on-one check-in. Prioritize the time to get to know your team at both the professional and personal levels so you can support them in both ways as best you can.

What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

We are a fairly lean startup, so I haven’t had experience managing a large team yet. However, I would love any and all advice from other women leaders so I can be better prepared when we scale our team!

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?

John Diaz, my first manager at Blackstone, greatly impacted the beginning of my professional career. He was an awesome first boss — he was always fully transparent, provided truly constructive feedback, and cared about my professional career both at Blackstone and outside of Blackstone. He helped me succeed in my role and pushed me to always strive for excellence. I remember one of our first one-on-one meetings where he told me we could use that time to discuss career development. Even after we stopped working together, we stayed in close touch and he was one of the first people I talked to about making the jump to start Pickle. He was so supportive and encouraged me to take the opportunity to start a company. I couldn’t have asked for a better first boss/mentor — thanks for all of the support and guidance, Diaz!

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

My success and experiences throughout my collegiate career at Penn, my time at Blackstone, and my leadership at Pickle have allowed me to give back to students who are looking for general career advice or who are interested in potentially pursuing entrepreneurship. I’ve attended several alumni panels hosted by Penn and have given presentations to student groups across other universities. I had a lot of help along the way and I found it incredibly valuable to listen to alumni or recent grads speak about their experiences after college. I will always make time for a coffee chat or panel to help give back to students who are looking for advice around professional development, being a woman in STEM, or even just what it’s like to live in NYC after college. If you’re a student or someone looking for advice or a conversation around some of the industries I have experience in, please feel free to reach out to me ([email protected]) — I’d love to chat!

You are a person of enormous 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 would love to inspire a large mental health movement that de-stigmatizes the conversations around mental health starting at a very young age. I don’t think I knew much about this area until college and wish I had learned about it earlier. It would be great to start these conversations and educational classes as early as middle school. Normalizing conversations about mental health will reduce the stigma around asking for help and utilizing resources such as therapy. If we can build a strong foundation around prioritizing mental health and having access to mental health resources, this will have a huge impact on the generations to come.

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

You can’t control what happens, but you can control the way you react to what happens. My therapist told me this during one of our sessions over the pandemic. We had been discussing best ways to deal with stress around some personal life events that had been challenging to navigate. As someone who often strives for perfection, it’s difficult when things don’t go as expected. At a startup, priorities are constantly shifting/evolving, and things don’t always go according to plan. Controlling my reaction to bumps in the road and choosing to have a positive attitude has been incredibly helpful for my overall mental health. Instead of dwelling on what went wrong, I focus on my reaction and what I can control. It also helps that I have an awesome co-founder to navigate these challenges with. We love to throw in a bit of humor after something doesn’t go as expected.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders 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? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I would love to have a private meal with Sara Blakely, the CEO of Spanx. I find her story inspiring and I love the way she gave back to her entire company after selling her majority stake in the company. I’d love to learn more about how she navigated scaling her business and what her most valuable lessons learned are as a female CEO.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Julia O’Mara of Pickle Poll On The 5 Leadership Lessons She… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Be mindful of who you surround yourself with — Our emotions and energy constantly feed off by our surroundings. One thing that not only helped my mental wellness, but also my growth in life, was surrounding myself with good people who have similar interests. Here is a quick tip: Begin a hobby or join a group of like-minded people who will give you a feeling of belonging and motivation, plus inspire you to grow more.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Hall.

Former Australian Rules Football player and mental health sports coach for 13 years, Tim Hall was named the 2015 Coach of the Year in Australia. Additionally, Tim has been a business entrepreneur for 12 years and is fully licensed in breathwork practice.

Recently relocating to Los Angeles, Tim’s years of professional coaching have equipped him with the experience to create an exceptional and unique understanding of the ways in which we can achieve more of our life’s desires and goals.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I always had a nurturing character from a young age. As a 13-year-old, my mum suffered from MS, so many of my childhood years were spent coming straight home from school to look after her. There was no other option as she needed us kids, which instilled a value to always be there to help others. After she passed away when I was 15, I went through the next six years experiencing heavy emotions, feelings of failure and self-doubt, and with no strong guidance to help me understand this, I didn’t achieve the level of success and true capability at school and in sports. I thought of myself as a failure, and I lived that way. There was blame put on others who were not there to support me through it, but what I didn’t realize as a young man at that point was that everyone else was experiencing their own tough journey and doing their best to survive personally.

I have deeply reflected over that period of my life to not only forgive myself and others but to be proud of stepping up as a child to make my mum’s life the best it could be. I had to do things that no other 13- year-old should experience, and this is why I am a motivated person today. I know the toughest part of my life is done, so there are no excuses to except failure again.

After my mum passed, I slow motioned through the years that followed and it wasn’t until about the age of 22 that I started to change my entire perspective on myself and what I could achieve in life. I had a full-time job which taught me responsibilities, and my enjoyment and work ethic toward football started to grow. I began feeling more in control and knew that there was a lot I wanted to still achieve. I saw my past experiences as the foundation for my newfound feelings, and I started to investigate different ways of personal growth. I signed up for courses, retreats, and did research on expanding my mind to better my routine and my behaviors.

And so, my journey began… it led to playing semi pro football, studying more, taking a chance on a new job, investing my money instead wasting it on pointless things, and I bought a home. I was investing in my future. My mindset was growing along with confidence. I gained awareness in my strengths and was witnessing the best version of me and my life. As my playing career was coming to an end, I stepped up out of my comfort zone again to coach high-level football. This challenge is where I really discovered my leadership, management skills and relationship building qualities. It was a big step, but one my foundation prepared me for.

I was dealing with all levels of players, and because of my journey, I could see people’s true ability before they even could. I loved using sports as a vehicle to help guide them to discover this for themselves. This was the flame I always had inside me, but now it was burning bright!

As a coach my learning never stops, so even though I was on a solid path for more opportunities, I took my development to a whole new level. Not in modern coaching education… I wanted to expand my mind from a different angle. So, during off-season my journeys would continually take me to Bali where I went to learn and discover a more spiritual and holistic approach in my mind and see what would happen when I combined it all together. This helped mold my current coaching beliefs and the daily behaviors in the way I live my life.

As a former athlete, I knew this different approach would help other athletes discover a different side to them; to get out of the way of their old beliefs and let them see their true powerful side.

I knew with my life journey the highs and lows that I went through and the mindset to shift my perspective in life and sports could help other like-minded sports players to fast track their growth and success on the field and off.

So here I am!

Working one-on-one with athletes and business leaders to shape their mindset through self-awareness, behaviors and routines, and giving them a conscious and sub-conscious roadmap to help discover their best path and stay on it.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

A big part of my work is doing Visualization Breathwork and while I was still living in Australia, I was working for a professional football team doing some breathing with a selected few players during pre-games. I was guiding them to be focused and mentally prepared and aligned to their role. One day another player asked if he could join in the session after hearing about all the good results. Normally I would say no because he hadn’t done a session before, but I knew he was an overthinker and would allow his nerves to get the better of him before every game. It was clear that the session would defiantly calm him down and give clarity on what his role was to perform at a higher level.

So, we all jumped in a quiet room and did the breathing session. Afterwards this player had a dazed look to him which got me worried that he might pass out. But I kept an eye on him by chatting and making him drink water. As game time got closer, I could see his focus and confidence was different than normal and his first four minutes of the game was unbelievable! I don’t think I had seen a better start to the game by an individual player in all my years involved in football. The ball was a magnet to him, even when he got knocked on the ground, he would jump straight back up and the ball would just find him. Contest after contest he fought for the ball and found it again in a dangerous position and finished with the first goal of the game. He looked a level above everyone else out there, and to stay involved and as focused as he was takes extreme mental strength. Those fours minute were a turning point for him as a person and a player.

Afterwards we spoke and he told me that he never felt like that before a game. He felt calm and confident to go out there and just play. This is probably the most instant performance result from doing pre-game breathwork I had ever seen. I see players’ games show improvement over time, but his was from the very first minute!

He now swears by my breathwork routines and continues to practice it prior to every game. This has led to consistent weekly performances, and in fact, he won some elite individual awards that year.

Watching his journey, I knew the power that breathwork has in order to be mentally ready, but not just for athletes, for all of us!

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

Luckily for me, I haven’t really had one. I’ve been stumped on answering certain questions I have received, but vulnerability is not a problem of mine, so what someone might see as an embarrassing mistake, I embrace it as a lesson and motivation to get it right.

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?

I would credit a group of people over just one. I’ve worked hard and taken risks to achieve everything to get myself to the point I’m at now, but all the people along my journey have been a big part of it. I believe everyone adds value to your life. From a young age, I have listened and learned off football coaches, business mentors, spiritual leaders and of course, my father. All these people have given me great values for success, but I haven’t always agreed with everyone along the way, which in some instances has been my strongest lessons to my success.

As you may tell, I am an open book and have never latched on to one person. I love to share and learn off numerous people as it allows me to continually have a growth mindset, different perspectives in situations, and be in a more balanced mindset in my day-to-day thoughts, decisions and actions.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

I see a long-term change in all my clients when they have clarity in their true-self and their desired journey. This is when their thoughts, routines and behaviors will shift to consistently be more aligned with their vision and goals. Waking up each day with this clarity brings life fulfillment, motivation and focused energy to stay on track, but also exceed expectations.

Think about it! When you need to do something you don’t want to do, what are your thoughts and motivation levels like? You will make excuses and avoid the job for as long as you can because it doesn’t align with your vision and goals. Obviously, we all still must deal with those things like cleaning the house or car, but even then, the more you live aligned to your vision, the easier you will find motivation and see a desired outcome to take the required action.

That is why elite people and athletes have long successful careers at a top level. Even though they will get mentally and emotionally challenged more than you throughout a day, they are balanced in their thoughts and have clarity in their vision and goals, so their belief in those moments is one of opportunity to better themselves.

My biggest tip to get this clarity is to become more present every day. I guide people in breathwork, but finding stillness, meditation, yoga, journaling are great options too. The world is crazy with emails, social media, news, and more. The energy of the world, as we speak, has everyone on high alert. So, your personal time to be more present and away from distractions has never been more important.

Reflect on your thoughts, routines, habits, and your goals, and I guarantee you if there is a disconnect or uncertainty between them, you will be experiencing stress, anxiety, fear in your life today. This leads to one outcome… being burnt out.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

We all have different strengths as leaders, so understand yours and lead by example in ways that inspire you. When your actions inspire you, your actions will inspire your team. So, always lead from your strengths and not someone else’s.

A leader creates a calm and confident atmosphere, always motivating your team to step up. Everyone wants a purpose, so give your team responsibility to have one. When we have a purpose, we have more care in the result.

Build relationships amongst your colleagues on trust and respect. Just because you’re a leader doesn’t make you any different from them. Yes, your responsibilities do, but if you want trust and respect from your team, you must give that to them first.

When I am in a leading position, I focus on these areas because all my success as a coach or in business has come from here.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

1. Find some stillness everyday — With television and social media our minds are always racing. By finding five minutes of stillness through meditation and breathwork, your thoughts will begin to process life differently; you will be calmer in the mind, you will give your mind a break to refocus. This is something I do each day, and when life is hectic, and I need to be more present. Close your eyes and practice being still.
2. Movement — I exercise daily to help wind down from a busy day and prepare for tomorrow. Exercise allows my mind to get creative. An exercise can even be the simple act of stretching. By doing movement all down our bodies our brain releases endorphins which is a trigger for positive feelings.
3. Journaling — Our minds are computers, always trying to process everything that comes into our lives. I believe, especially for athletes, that we overthink situations and life in general. By writing it on paper your words will allow you to not simplify your thoughts but start processing them in a more balanced mindset. I started journaling three years ago, focusing on gratitudes, affirmations, goals settings, and self-love, and each day it still has a huge effect on my mindset and how I start my day.
4. Sleep — Our minds are like cars that need the right fuel to function properly. Sleep is that fuel. I was coaching an Australian athlete who would struggle to turn his video games off at night. He would sleep in during the mornings and the mindset from when he got up was one of lack and frustration. I challenged him to change those patterns, stop playing video games, and wake up at a more productive time. Within days he called and told me how different he was feeling mentally.
5. Be mindful of who you surround yourself with — Our emotions and energy constantly feed off by our surroundings. One thing that not only helped my mental wellness, but also my growth in life, was surrounding myself with good people who have similar interests. Here is a quick tip: Begin a hobby or join a group of like-minded people who will give you a feeling of belonging and motivation, plus inspire you to grow more.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

When I work with high school athletes, I start with discovering the true version of themselves.

I do this by using daily routines of positive practices to open their mind and set some positive intentions for the day. A simple act of expressing three gratitudes towards others and the world around you will start your day in an appreciative mindset and manner. An affirmation to re-affirm who you are, your strengths, and the best version of you that you know you can be.

Doing a meditation or breathing practices, even for a few minutes a day, provides space to think, re-focus, set daily goals, and just have a few minutes away from the fantasy world around phones and social media.

Diet and exercise are important to instill at an early age. Diet for energy, weight, skin, and health. Exercise to get them out of the house to breathe fresh air and get away from technology teaches them social skills and helps to build friendships, better behavior and self-esteem.

But in the end, I tell parents that you are the one to set the example for your kid(s). Teens are all by products of their surroundings.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

I can’t say I have a particular book that has made a huge impact on me, but I love listening to podcasts about personal growth, especially by Dr. John Demartini as his beliefs and mindset are very similar to my own.

I also love watching documentaries about athletes and their life behind the scenes. Everything an elite athlete does, down to the finer details in preparation, their expectations, dealing with fame, and everything that comes with that, gives me a great understanding on how the mind works.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start 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. 🙂

It would be a breathwork movement for adults and for kids in schools. I have been doing this for over four years now and was hooked from day one. It has changed my life in so many positive ways and I have seen the growth in clients’ energy and mindset after each session.

Athletes I have worked with have gone from uncertainty to confidence, fear to focus. Their thoughts towards life, preparation and game have levelled up. Not only athletes but everyone sets high personal expectations. We are expected to be more and mimic others, which has been a contributor to rising mental health issues.

My goals are to bring more voice to this practice. Team up with a research team and practice breathwork on different patients to see the effects over time. I know it would help relieve comfort in patients and improve mental state. Our greatest power is our breath and it’s time we maximize our health through it.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“You may be born with certain levels of talent, but you have to continue to grow and evolve as an athlete and person and make the next day better than the previous.” — Tom Brady

This is me. My life changed when I decided to expand my mindset and was willing to grow every single day. And note, the biggest change from doing this hasn’t been my success (but it would for most). It has been my fulfillment in life. Every day I am the true version of myself and push the boundaries so much more than I thought I could.

I have come out from being a quiet, low confident kid to building wealth, travelling the world, and doing something that excites me each day I get out of bed.

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

The best way to experience my content is through Instagram: @Timh_pro_minds and through my website www.timhallbranding.com where you can do weekly breathwork practices for athletes and/or everyday life. Work with me one-on-one and feel free to personally contact me with any questions!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

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Tim Hall: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Gail Rudolph of Gail Rudolph Collaborative On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Be kind to yourself, laugh at and learn from your mistakes. Society tells us mistakes and failures are unacceptable, but both are part of being human. Other people will see our mistakes and that’s okay because they make us stronger and better.

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

Internationally sought-after Power Expert Gail Rudolph is the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Power Up Power Down. The go-to expert on how to harness personal power and create win/win outcomes, Gail teaches overlooked and under-estimated women how to step into their power and thrive in their careers and in life.

Gail is one of 13 people globally — one of two women, and the only woman in the United States — credentialed to teach the six universal Principles of Persuasion based on the research of the “Godfather of Influence,” Dr. Robert Cialdini. She is CEO and founder of Gail Rudolph Collaborative.

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 in the Midwest as the youngest of four children. My brother, who was the oldest, was 18 years my senior.

As the “baby” of the family, I often felt overlooked. Unfortunately, this lead me down a chronic people pleasing path, only to discover years later that I suffered for it, both physically and emotionally.

Ultimately, I realized other women were likely encountering the same obstacles. As a result, I wrote Power Up, Power Down: How to Reclaim Control and Make Every Situation a Win/Win as a guide to offer others effective “power tools” they could implement both personally and professionally.

Being the youngest also impacted my ability to set and stand by personal boundaries. Even as I became an adult, my brothers and sisters continually disregarded any limits I attempted to set. They each viewed me as both the problem and the problem-solver.

Once I discovered that boundaries are the “Secret Sauce” to personal power, that’s when my relationship with my siblings and those around me changed for the better.

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?

Fred, a good friend of mine, worked for Samantha, a very successful businesswoman. Samantha was smart, determined, and hardworking. But while she was an adamant protector of her own boundaries, she was a notorious boundary buster to others.

Samantha and Fred became acquainted through their sons, and a few years after their initial association, Samantha recruited Fred to work for her- AtT the outset of their professional relationship, she began calling and texting Fred at all hours, including early mornings, evenings, and weekends, with “urgent” work requests.

One Monday morning, Fred was dropping his son off at her house so their boys could walk to school together. He had been working on another high-priority project Samantha had given him and had some questions about how to proceed. After a few minutes of conversation, he asked her for some clarification on the urgent work-related issue.

Immediately, her eyes narrowed, and her lips thinned into a hard line. “How DARE you come to my home and encroach upon my personal time by asking me about work outside of the workday?” Samantha snapped.

Fred was shocked and speechless. He had falsely assumed that since Samantha felt comfortable sending business his way during non-work hours, he was also free to make an “after-hours” inquiry. Fred was taken aback from this unexpected comment and her strong reaction to his question. After some consideration he stated, “I am so sorry, Samantha. I know that this project is important, and thought since I was here, I’d ask you about it so I could hit the ground running once I got into the office.”

“Well, you thought wrong. Don’t you ever do that again,” Samantha firmly stated. Not knowing how to respond, he said he would see her later at the office and left.

As he drove away, he Fred mentally replayed all of the times she had encroached on his boundaries around non-work hours and responded to her request without fail.

Samantha had a habit of creating crises by promising clients’ unreasonable deadlines and offloading meeting those deadlines to Fred and the team during off-hours. As time went on, Fred became more and more stressed, angry, and even resentful. And, not surprisingly, so did his family. He made every attempt to communicate boundaries, but Samantha seemed to refuse to hear and/or accept them.

Realizing that her behavior was never going to change, Fred submitted a letter of resignation. Even after receiving the letter, Samantha continued her boundary-busting behavior. She left numerous desperate voicemails and sent multiple text messages saying how much Fred had upset her.

She even tried to play the victim with Fred, saying that he was leaving her “high and dry” by not bringing the project to completion. Luckily, Fred had finally learned the importance of holding true to his personal boundaries and was not swayed by her tactics.

As this situation shows, setting and sticking to boundaries is not always easy. For Fred it was a slippery slope, and he should have never let it go as long as he did. He confessed to me later that it was fear that stood in the way of him standing up for himself. His experience caused me to take good long look at my own boundaries because I was headed down the same path. That is why I had to asked mayself and we all should ask ourselves, “Are our my limiting beliefs or fears causing us me to resist setting boundaries? This question is one that most people can benefit from answering.

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 started my career in philanthropy, raising money for a variety of nonprofit organizations. One of my first positions was at a community foundation where I was the only full-time employee and my boss, who was gone more often than he was in the office, was part-time. I did most of the work while he took the majority of the credit.

I worked hard and completed goals that should’ve taken three years in a little over one year.

So, I thought it was the perfect time to ask for a raise.

To this day, I remember my boss shaking his head no and saying, “You get child support, don’t you?”

I was shocked. I didn’t know how to respond or what to do. I tried asking what that had to do with my accomplishments for the foundation, but that didn’t change his view about giving me a pay increase. Every time I brought up the subject of a pay increase, I got the same response.

I discovered later that the foundation board approved a salary increase — for my boss. I felt utterly devalued, frustrated, and powerless.

Finally, I resigned and moved on. I learned an important lesson thanks to that experience: I realized that I had been unknowingly giving my power away.

It took me years to understand that my lack of boundaries, mindset, and self-talk were part of what was holding me back. Setting and sticking to boundaries also played a role in my inability to properly hold my power position.

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?

Chronic people pleasing — needing others to like and approve of us — can lead to serious wellness issues.

Boundaries are an essential aspect of our wellbeing. In fact, they are the “special sauce” of interpersonal power. By holding firm to our personal limits, we are defining and establishing our true empowerment. It is through maintaining and holding our boundaries that we show the world where we will and will not be moved.

Today, I’m an expert in the dynamics of power, helping others learn how to be happier and healthier by understanding how to harness their personal power effectively. But, that wasn’t always the case. I am also a recovering people pleaser.

People pleasing by default hands control of our value, worth, and personal power over to others. We will never succeed when we try to be all things to all people and ultimately, we end up failing everyone, including ourselves. For example, research from the Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology dated February 2012* predicts people pleasers eat more in response to perceived social pressure than the general population.

People pleasers, whether chronic or occasional, fear and avoid conflict. Not only do people pleasers pretend to agree with everyone, but they also take on responsibility for the feelings of others, morphing who they are to make other people more comfortable at the expense of their own needs, morals, and values.

Those who strive to please others forego authentic relationships because they don’t feel safe admitting when they’re sad, angry, resentful, burdened, or disappointed. The energy spent on attempting to make others happy can lead to loneliness and isolation.

Ironically, we often think of people pleasers as powerless, but in truth they’re using a form of power to fit in and belong. I call this “Powering Down,” which, when used inappropriately, can be expressed by going along with the desires of others, apologizing, allowing ourselves to be interrupted, and taking up as little space as possible. What is gained in likability is lost in influence and, for people pleasers, their self-respect and in turn, their overall wellbeing.

By employing subtle yet impactful “Powering Up” behaviors — such as speaking up, making direct eye contact, standing up for others, and taking up more space — people pleasers can step into a new type of power while remaining kind and loving, without being a doormat.

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.

Not sure what else to include….

Five lessons that helped me overcome my people pleasing tendency and maximize my health and wellbeing.

1. Examine the symptom. Are you saying yes to something that you truly want to say no to? I had to take a deep, hard look at the root cause of my tendency to people please. I asked myself things like: How am I feeling? What in my past or childhood taught me to accept something that was someone else’s responsibility? Do I have limiting beliefs that I am not worthy to set boundaries?
2. Identify the need. What was happening on an emotional level that caused me to seek pleasing others while denying what I need. Fear of abandonment? Guilt? I What specifically was causing me to allow people to push past my boundaries and give my power away?
3. Clearly define and communicate my boundaries. Understand that boundaries are simply limits we put around our time, energy and money. I sat down and determined ahead of time what I was willing and felt comfortable doing and where I’d draw the line. I communicated those limits to others and if they attempted to push passed those limits, I set consequences. For example, if I said I was not going to work after 6pm. I didn’t answer work calls, texts, or emails after that time and waited to respond until the next morning. Don’t get me wrong — this was very hard at first but with practice it became easier.
4. Respond, don’t react. Take a deep breath to “collect yourself.” I prepared responses in advance to common situationssituations, so I did not have to think on the spot. This comes in handy especially if you find yourself giving in to the same people or the same requests. An example might sound something like “It sounds like you had a tough week with that unexpected problem. I understand you are in a tight spot, but I won’t be able to help you on such short notice. I’d be happy to help next time if you ask at least two weekdays in advance.”
5. Prepare for Boundary Busters. Accept the fact that there will always be those that will put pressure on you to cross or relinquish an established boundary. I had to accept responsibility for holding my boundaries. One thing that helped was to identify those who continually tried to break through my boundaries and put distance between myself and that person when possible.

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

The movement I would ignite is one in which we are allowed to say “no” to the requests and/or expectations of others on our time, money, and energy.

“No” is a seemingly simple word. As young children, no was a word we used frequently. Toddlers often defiantly say no to their parents but quickly discover that word is not acceptable.

As we get older, it seems that many of us carry that toddler interaction into our belief system: Saying no is inappropriate and impolite. This internalized belief is why many people struggle with saying no and setting proper personal boundaries.

Boundaries are an essential aspect of our wellbeing. By holding firm to our personal limits — by feeling empowered to say “no” — we are defining and establishing our true empowerment. It is through maintaining and holding our boundaries that we show the world where we will and will not be moved and as such, we protect our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.

Healthy, defined boundaries give us confidence. They provide us with the freedom to allow ourselves and others to have a voice, be heard, and cultivate trust in relationships. When we can stand in our power, others are given the ability to do the same.

In the past, I didn’t not hold my boundaries at the expense of their my own physical and emotional well-being.

My dream ultimate goal would be that no person ever relinquishes their personal power though lack of boundaries ever again. Which is why I have dedicated my life to teach and coach others to harness their personal power.

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

(These were the same we provided in the previous Q&A. Should we rephrase, or change a few? Or, should these be listed as the 5 top lifestyle tweaks?)

1. Positive Self Talk. As successful as I was in the corporate world, I found myself having to work at keeping negative thoughts from invading me. They slip in so easily and before you know it, you’ve convinced yourself that there is no way you can succeed. I’ve learned that you can’t stop negative thoughts from entering your mind however, you can decided how much energy to give them. Never let negative thoughts take the power of your vision away.
2. Clearly Defined and Communicated Boundaries. I am a recovering people pleaser. I say recovering because if you default to wanting to please others, you must know your boundaries and make a conscious choice to hold them. if I had clearly defined and held my boundaries, I could have avoided toxic situations both in my professional and personal relationships.
3. Use the Proper “Power Tools” There are two ways to step into power. Powering Up and Powering Down both use verbal and nonverbal communication and are different sides of the same coin. We have a choice in every situation whether we want to Power Up or Power Down. They are both equally effective but choosing the correct “Power Tool” for the situation opens your influence and advances relationships.
4. See things as opportunities instead of barriers. Every road leads to where we need to be. If we must take a detour, remember it’s there for a reason. We give our power away when we tell ourselves that something or someone can keep us from achieving our dream. Instead, we can harness our power by embracing everything along our path as a necessary part of preparing for the great things ahead. View obstacles as learning opportunities and move on with increased motivation.
5. Be kind to yourself, laugh at and learn from your mistakes. Society tells us mistakes and failures are unacceptable, but both are part of being human. Other people will see our mistakes and that’s okay because they make us stronger and better.

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

Having worked in the healthcare system, I saw daily how physical health issues received considerable treatment. The examinations, tests, procedures….all done to bring a person back to a healthy physical state. But the same level of dedication wasn’t afforded to mentalto mental and emotional wellbeing. Over the past 21 months of the pandemic, it’s become even more apparent and vitally important to address this widespread epidemic.

As a global community, we each need to change our mindset on mental and emotional health. Instead of a stigma that struggling only afflicts “the weak,” we should view it for what it is — a health issue that requires compassionate treatment.

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

I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin. My website is also a great resource. All links are below.

GailRudolph.com

https://www.facebook.com/GailRudolphAuthor

https://www.instagram.com/gailrudolphauthor/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gail-rudolph/

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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

Stephen Stearman of Elevate Holistics: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

I have an extremely strong culture at my company, and I have invested in my employees and paid them bonuses since I started. When I say that I invest in my employees, we do monthly employee development workshops, we have a book club, and I recently brought on a performance coach to help with mental health. What we do is hard, and starting a company is hard, but I know it’s worth it because we almost quadrupled the business from 2020 to 2021.

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 Stephen Stearman.

Stephen Stearman is the founder of Elevate Holistics, a cannabis tech company looking to increase access to medical cannabis.

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?

I feel like I meandered about for several years before landing where I am now. I grew up and went to college in Kentucky, where I did door-to-door sales for 4 years, then moved to Austin in 2014 for a graduate program in entrepreneurship, ground my teeth in tech sales, pivoted to non-profit development work and then started a cannabis technology company — Elevate Holistics — in June of 2019, which I am building to this day.

When I look back at my experiences, I think there are several that have made me the man I am today. Those key moments were when I was selling books door to door and then my graduate program.

My first summer in the book field, I moved to Minnesota to live with a host family for the 13-week selling period. Literally 50% of the students that start the summer do not finish it. We sell for 13 hours each day, 6 days each week. When I first got to Minnesota, I was seriously underprepared and after one week of not selling a single book, I found myself crying on a curb wishing to the high heavens I was back home. I called my father and he said, “You made this bed, now lie in it.” I was not allowed to call it quits. By the end of the summer, I was producing enough sales to NET $3,000 for the summer. It was miserable, but the lessons of grit, responsibility, work ethic, and positive attitude have stayed with me to this day.

My experience selling books propelled me to acceptance into the Acton School of Business in Austin. That was a grueling program that taught me how to make money, how to understand my ethical framework, and how to learn. The men and women in that program gave me the confidence I needed to take on the workforce. It took 4 years post grad school to start my first company, but when I did, I used that group as a resource regularly, and I still do. Accountability and votes of confidence make a massive difference in any entrepreneur’s journey.

Starting my first company in cannabis has been a wild ride. When I got the call in June 2019, I didn’t have any experience in cannabis, but I believed in the science behind plant medicine because of how much better my grandmother’s life got when she was battling cancer and medicating with cannabinoids. My business partner owned a medical practice and we felt confident we could make the business work. Originally, we started Elevate to learn the value chain of medical marijuana and find where we wanted to place ourselves, but once we got into it, we decided to stick with the medical marijuana card business.

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?

We experienced a large jump in business during Covid-19 because Elevate is a telemedicine business. That gave us confidence that we could pull the trigger on developing a new e-signature platform to support the company and simultaneously increase our marketing spend. But over the span of 30 days, sales fell by 30% and invoices came due. I couldn’t make the payroll and almost drove the company into the ground because we failed to stick to a more modest budget. It was truly a brutal time in the company’s history and every person connected to the company took a pay cut: staff, vendors, doctors, you name it. The amazing part was that everyone stayed on board, and within 60 days, I returned everyone to their former pay schedule. It was incredibly humbling and a lesson I will never forget about budgeting and taking more calculated risks.

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?

There was a small dispensary in a small town in Oklahoma that I had a really good relationship with. We used iPads out in the field to help dispensaries see our doctors, and I gave this dispensary an iPad to use, but in my haste to move on I synced it with my iCloud.

I turned off picture syncing, but low and behold some of them did, and one was a picture of me in tiny boxers that I sent to my girlfriend. I found out because I randomly received a picture of the three dispensary staff members holding the iPad with the picture on it asking when I would deliver them donuts (the boxers had donuts on them). I immediately wanted to crawl into a hole and wither away into non-existence.

Luckily, they had a sense of humor and everything was fine, and I did indeed take them donuts about a month later. The lesson is: don’t make decisions that expose you to liability out of the desire to act with haste. I didn’t want to take the time to reset the Apple ID because I was wanting to get my contacts in, typical sales person, but I paid for that mistake

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

Yes, we are working on adding a mental health component to the business. We are treating people every day for various conditions, and we are of the mind that while cannabis is amazing for so many things, it can become a band-aid solution or a crutch for some. We want to provide additional services that will fulfill our mission of helping people live better, more natural lives.

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?

One person who was a big help to us is a guy named Jack Mitchell, who owns BesaMe Wellness in Kansas City. Jack gave us a shot when we were a tiny company, truly just a tiny team with a big dream. He opened up his resources to us and helped us see the opportunity that was right in front of our faces to integrate our clinic with dispensary marketing systems. We are where we are today because he helped us develop the technology and served as our first test partner.

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?

Facebook community groups. We’ve had great success with those and I don’t think they get utilized enough. It depends on the audience though, however, because cannabis happens to be an industry with young and old patrons alike.

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

The three things I find most exciting are: the health benefits that are still being discovered, watching states legalize cannabis left and right, and seeing that Boomers are the fastest growing demographic for the industry.

My concerns are: the current monetary restrictions with banking, the corruption at the state level with who can get licenses, and the mental health impacts of people consuming cannabis in an unhealthy way.

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. Don’t try paid marketing until you have an enormous budget.
   -We wasted $18,000 onboarding, and thousands of dollars in paid ads, only to have our ad accounts shut down.
   -Invest in OWNED and EARNED media. Build your email list, build your text list, and get the community involved.
2. Invest heavily in the things that allow you to communicate with customers easily.
   -We got shut down by Twilio multiple times because of the fact we support the cannabis industry. It’s not an exaggeration to say that 50% of our communication is done via texting, because this crushed us.
   Spend the money to use systems that allow you to contact your customers, such as:
   -Effective texting & email platforms
   -Developing an app for young people
3. Have a backup bank account on LOCK.
   -Square shut us down and we couldn’t take payments. It happened out of nowhere and we were like chickens with our heads cut off.
4. Capital is hard to come by in certain markets, so garner quality relationships with banks and private funding sources.
   -We tried to raise money and it takes a special kind of investor or fund for the appetite. Network HARD. Treat people right. Find the opportunities. We found that we had to use private investors and angel investors who support the industry.
5. Government regulation comes hard and fast. Always be on your toes.
   -We can be killed by changes in texting regulations, how we can interact with dispensaries, how we can connect with patients, & telemedicine concerns.
   -For people in dispensaries or cultivations, I have seen packaging laws change overnight.

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

I have an extremely strong culture at my company, and I have invested in my employees and paid them bonuses since I started. When I say that I invest in my employees, we do monthly employee development workshops, we have a book club, and I recently brought on a performance coach to help with mental health. What we do is hard, and starting a company is hard, but I know it’s worth it because we almost quadrupled the business from 2020 to 2021.

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 movement I’d inspire is to encourage kids to start entrepreneurial projects. I think business is the best way people ascend through class stratas and having confidence to do that when they get out of high school can be life changing.

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

Linkedin, IG: @sstearman11 @elevate.holistics

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Stephen Stearman of Elevate Holistics: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Dr Shirley Knowles of Progress Software On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

The 5 leadership lessons I’ve learned from my experience as a woman in STEM and further a woman in a predominantly male-dominated industry are the following: representation matters, leading with empathy, organizations need to sponsor non-profit organizations, authenticity is pivotal, and evolving the meaning behind leader positions. I hope some of these lessons will look unfamiliar to the untrained eye. It’s become easy to suggest common life lessons such as strategic development and fostering innovation — it’s time we approach leadership from a new perspective.

As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women Leaders in Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Shirley Knowles.

Dr. Shirley Knowles joined Progress as its first Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer. She is responsible for leading the company’s inclusion and diversity initiatives designed to foster a culture of belonging where all employees feel valued, safe and seen. She previously served as the first diversity and inclusion officer at a large property and casualty insurance company in Boston, where she led initiatives to promote inclusivity and appreciation of cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, socioeconomic and educational diversity.

Shirley earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Marquette University; a Master of Leadership Studies degree from North Central College; a Master of Arts in Gender and Cultural Studies and Master of Science in communications management from Simmons College; and a Doctor of Education in organizational leadership degree from Northeastern University.

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

I’ve been drawn to a career in inclusion and diversity from a very young age, even before I embarked on my career. There’s always been a driving force within me to better understand people, their backgrounds, and how those backgrounds contribute to their understanding of the world. To me, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging means that people from different walks of life can appreciate the journey of the folks to the right and the left of them: no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, disabilities, or religious affiliation.

Most of my life, I have been the “first” or the “only one” in a number of instances: the “only one” in many of my AP classes in high school, as well as the first African-American senior class president at a predominately white high school. I was the first African-American to give a commencement speech at my college graduation. In many of my undergraduate and graduate programs, I was one of the few or only African-Americans in the classroom. As I have progressed into various leadership roles, I have seen very few women of color in management roles at the various companies I have worked at over the years — I believe experiencing this has made me a more empathetic and humble person because I know what it feels like to not see others who look like you. Being the “first” or “only” isn’t something that necessarily keeps me up at night, but it is something I’m conscious of — and because of this, I strive to ensure I am mentoring and paving the way for other underrepresented groups so they are not the “first” or “only” as they move up the ranks into leadership roles.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

Being an inclusion and diversity officer is not as easy as some may think — you’re constantly learning on the go since this space is subjective and ever-evolving. During my first couple of months at Progress, I was planning a listening tour with some subcommittee members from our inclusion and diversity committee. During the process, I asked one member — a white male who has been with the company for more than a decade — to randomly connect with employees he was meeting with throughout the week to get their perspective on I&D. I met with him a week later and he shared how amazed he was at the various perspectives on the topic, including those apathy and fear of discussing the topic with other employees for fear of ‘saying the wrong thing.’ In that moment, we took some time to process some of the feedback he heard and reconfigured part of the listening tour to ensure we could address how uncomfortable it may be for employees to openly talk about what inclusion and diversity means to them. Although I was not totally surprised by some of the comments he heard, I knew this was one of those ‘a-ha’ moments for him, but I also knew his experience would make him a stronger ally for building an even more inclusive workplace.

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?

I started my career in public relations and I was pretty green — there were so many things I didn’t know, but I was too proud to tell anyone I didn’t know how to build out a media list or why it’s so important to keep press releases short and to the point. One of the mistakes I kept making was around media alerts — I would sometimes start out writing an alert, but it looked like a press release and vice versa. It was one of those things where I kept making the same error, but would pretend that I did it on purpose! Thank goodness I had an understanding leader at the time that could recognize there were a few things I needed to learn about PR, and was patient enough to teach me. The lesson I learned? It’s OK to admit you don’t know what you’re doing, and be open to help from someone who is much more experienced in your respective industry — it will help save time re-doing work down the road.

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

One of the reasons why I joined Progress was due to the company’s CEO staff members being committed to ensuring the organization is known — both internally and externally — as having diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging as part of the company’s DNA. Our CEO, Yogesh Gupta, understands at a foundational level what it feels like to be excluded through his life experiences as a man of color. Because of this, he can speak authentically about why inclusivity must be a part of Progress’ culture and values, and not some fly by night trend to check off boxes. People can see right through that fairly quickly. We’re not focusing on inclusion and diversity as a one-off — we’re doing it to create real, positive change.

Many other leaders on our CEO staff understand that systemic changes — including who we hire, who we’re developing and promoting, which employees our leaders are mentoring and sponsoring, the impact of our employee resource groups (ERGs) and I&D committee are making, the cultural events we celebrate, the diversity of our teams, and the way we engage with the world — are critical to the success of the company. Progress employees understand that I&D is a business imperative — by understanding our people, our communities, and our world, we are able to connect on a deeper level internally while also creating innovative products for our customers with our diversity of thought, experiences, skillset, education, and backgrounds.

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

As Progress’ first Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer, I felt that it was critical to hear from employees before I started to think about I&D initiatives that would impact our teams. Starting in the fall of 2021, I kicked off a multi-week “listening tour” throughout the entire organization, which led me to speak with dozens of employees from our offices around the world. By creating a safe space for groups of five or smaller to authentically speak about inclusion and diversity — without the fear of being judged or attacked for one’s beliefs — employees were very open about their own experiences in the workplace and what I can do to educate our leaders on the importance of creating inclusive teams.

We will continue these conversations in 2022 a few times every quarter, which will help me provide real-time, ongoing feedback to our leaders on how well we are moving the needle to ensure we are doing our best to be one of the most inclusive organizations in the world. Also, in the new year we plan on kicking off “lunch with leaders” series which focuses on identifying five to eight high performing individuals and giving them access to c-suite members. This critical program will allow participants to ask questions of their leaders like never before — asking essential questions that unlock a new way of thinking. These employees will get first hand experience to discuss leaders journey’s to the c-suite, understanding that the path is not linear and opportunities come in all shapes and sizes. By breaking down the hierarchy of leadership, this helps dispel imposter syndrome most feel, improve confidence, and increase fostering more open and honest conversations.

Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

Leaders in STEM have a certain responsibility to encourage girls’ passions in STEM. As the United Nations points out, globally, the percentage of females among STEM graduates is below 15% in over two-thirds of countries. And in middle and higher-income countries, only 14% of girls who were top performers in science or math expected to work in science and engineering compared to 26% of top-performing boys. In male dominated fields like STEM, it’s important we tackle these questions and find solutions.

Representation matters. Women sitting in a position of power and influence matters. If young girls see a women founder or see another sitting in top executive positions, they won’t question whether they belong in STEM, or questions if they can pursue this career path — they’ll see a future reflection of themselves. This can be done by setting up scholarships for women pursuing STEM fields; sponsoring all-female hackathons; and highlighting the amazing women working at their organization, especially those in leadership roles.

Enterprises around the world need to do a better job of laying a foundation to support young girls as they enter the workforce, so they won’t have to be one of the “first” or the “only.”

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

Promoting inclusion and diversity initiatives within the STEM field is notoriously difficult, often due to unconscious bias in hiring efforts, lack of promotions, and centuries-old inclusion issues. According to recent Pew Research, Hispanic and Black workers continue to be underrepresented in the STEM workforce, and women make up a quarter or fewer of workers in computing and engineering. Being the “first” and/or “only,” is intimidating so imagine for many women who work in male-dominated industries under the STEM umbrella must feel knowing they’ll never be considered first for a leadership roles because of their gender. Leaders and influences must recognize the impact unconscious bias has in the way we see and perceive others, especially when it comes to the way companies hire and promote women and people of color. We need to sponsor and invest in women and highlight the work they’re doing in the same way we have traditionally celebrated the talents and contributions of men.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?

I’ll keep it simple — there are plenty of women who are interested in a career in STEM. There are young girls in the world who want someone to invest in their dreams, to guide them and believe in their desire to work in the STEM field. They aren’t “uninterested” in STEM. We need to dispel this belief that girls and women don’t want to work in IT or aren’t good at math. Some of the greatest minds in STEM, like Katherine Johnson (of NASA) or Grace Hopper (the key inventor of the language COBOL, a widely used programming language) have been women. How many more like them are just waiting to be discovered and given a chance to change the world?

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

The 5 leadership lessons I’ve learned from my experience as a woman in STEM and further a woman in a predominantly male-dominated industry are the following: representation matters, leading with empathy, organizations need to sponsor non-profit organizations, authenticity is pivotal, and evolving the meaning behind leader positions. I hope some of these lessons will look unfamiliar to the untrained eye. It’s become easy to suggest common life lessons such as strategic development and fostering innovation — it’s time we approach leadership from a new perspective.

The majority of leadership positions in STEM tend to be white males — with minimal representation from women and minorities. We’ve reached a critical need for a greater emphasis on diversification, which is why mentoring the next generation has become so crucial. We need to see a significant commitment from organizations to sponsor or partner with non-profit organizations. Top talent comes from all places, and investing time and energy in cultivating the interests of these marginalized and underrepresented groups early on will distinguish organizations committed to fostering immense change.

Over the years, I’ve received feedback that those in tech view their job as ‘glass half empty,’ which can create misalignment between leaders and their teams. The power has shifted from leaders to employees, and meeting your teams where they are at has become critical for building trust. Authentic leaders are not afraid to get personal. It’s time to accept that the leader role is constantly evolving and hold them accountable for the success of their teams.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

There’s always room for improvement, and reassing can help leaders create realistic goals that contribute to the overall success of the team. Goal-setting is a seemingly important touchpoint for many leaders who look to this process to understand changes in employees’ performance. A key tip is diversifying their teams communication avenues. It can be easy for leaders to only collect feedback from management, but prioritizing hearing all voices shifts the accountability back onto the team. Sourcing feedback from all levels, pushes everyone to contribute to one another’s growth and success — and ensures all team members feel they belong and their opinion matters.

What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

As a female leader, work culture is an ever-evolving environment that needs care — which is true of managing large teams. It’s easy, especially in a dispersed workforce to become siloed in your individual work within a larger team. While everyone has individual needs, leaders who see the most success understand the importance of fostering an environment where everyone belongs. “Women are too emotional,” is a common myth women fight everyday — not many men are subjected to disprove. The key to hands-on leading with empathy is building a foundation of trust rooted in assessing everyone’s level of capabilities and committing a degree of accountability across the organization. Women leaders’ capacity to lead with more authenticity contributes to a solid foundation of trust and open communication across large teams. By doing so, they remove self-serving or unconscious bias and set goals for their teams that support each person’s individual growth and help them reach their full potential together.

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?

The biggest challenge in anyone’s career is asking for help. For me, that came in the form of a past leader and mentor who recognized my talent and potential early on and invested in my future success. Throughout my career, I’ve experienced passive-aggressive behavior from my colleagues making me feel invisible. But my mentor did more than be my advocate — she instilled a level of trust that in turn earned by loyalty. A great example of leadership is knowing not only when to act but more importantly when to listen, and she knew instinctively when jumping in with a solution wasn’t the best course of action. She pushed the HR team to perform a market analysis on what was fair pay for my background and expertise. Through actions like these, I could tell she cared deeply about my future success, which has made me into the person and leader I am today. Thank you.

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

I have always tried to remain humble and do my best to put myself in someone else’s shoes, to see situations from various perspectives. By doing this, I am able to empathize with others in a way that makes them feel seen and heard. I don’t do this because it’s “my job” to hear out different viewpoints and be accepting — being good to others is a core tenet I believe in and practice every day. I truly enjoy mentoring others, it brings me great joy to use my past experiences and insight to help others. I love donating and volunteering — I try to give to new nonprofits every year. I also enjoy sending friends motivational books that have made a big impact in my life. Overall, I just enjoy giving back to others. I have been very blessed in my life, so pouring into the cups of others is important to me.

You are a person of enormous 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 STEM industry is ripe for I&D change, and I truly believe it will help these organizations foster more innovation: for their companies and our greater social structures. I’m thrilled to join an organization that has committed to ensuring their inclusion, equity and diversity practices not only meet but exceed the STEM industry’s standards. By following these best practices, you can prime your STEM organization for lasting I&D impact.

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

My favorite life lesson quote I aspire to follow everyday is by Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Many of us are afraid to fail. Rightly so. But it shouldn’t end here, rather I’ve led my career by taking calculated risks. It was a worthwhile risk to become Chief Diversity Inclusion Officer at Progress, this is my first role at a global company. The world can be a subjective space if you don’t push to redefine your outlook constantly. Meeting new people worldwide, opening yourself up to discover different cultures, perspectives and opinions is what I believe Mark was trying to capture with his quote. This pertains to our need to push systemic changes in business operations — taking a true moment to understand where the other person comes from. Diversity of thought is no longer a nice to have but a critical component to the success of companies and people’s ability to put themselves in others’ shoes. The cultural events we celebrate, the diversity of our teams, and the way we engage with the world all add up to the unimaginable impact we have on one another. Many of us can get highly focused on one goal, driven to achieve it in the short team, but without getting distracted or trying something new you limit your ability to discover new possibilities. Life is full of endless possibilities, and fear should drive your push to discover not limit.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders 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? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet the person I’d love to have a private breakfast with or lunch with — but if given the chance to reconnect for a deeper thoughtful conversation I’d be honored to connect with Carla Harris, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley.

One of my previous employers had secured Carla as a keynote speaker — and my boss and mentor mentioned earlier knew of my passion and respect for her work. Not only did she care about my personal success she paid attention to my personal interests and nominated me to moderate the discussion with Carla. The ability to talk with my idol was unparalleled. Carla has achieved many firsts in life, motivated to never let anyone tell her she can’t do something. An important distinction many will miss is through all these achievements she didn’t pigeon hold this success but devoted her spare time to coach others to achieve their own “firsts.” As I have progressed through various leadership roles, I’ve seen very few women of color in management roles and it’s made me highly aware of my surroundings. “Being smart isn’t enough,” still rings true today and I strive to ensure I am mentoring and paving the way for other underrepresented groups. So they are afforded the same chance to have a boss and mentor like I had who’s invested in their professional and personal successes as they move up the ranks into leadership roles.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Dr Shirley Knowles of Progress Software On The 5 Leadership… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Randi Whitman of Frog Temple Pilates on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

I am most productive in the morning. I didn’t always know that, and I would often wait until the end of the day to get some important things done, to take on clients at my studio, to work out, etc., and it was always a bad idea. So my latest ‘tweak” is to make a list of what needs to get done, and make sure I tackle it in the early hours of the day when my brain is awake and most creative and productive.

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

Active in Pilates since 1996, Randi Whitman was certified by the renowned Pilates Center of Boulder, Colorado. Frog Temple Pilates has allowed Randi to share her vision of the Pilates method and mind-body wellness with her students and staff of Pilates instructors in Chicago and across the world. In addition, for over 20 years, Randi has offered her top-rated Frog Temple Teacher Training Program, having certified over 200 instructors. Her commitment and passion for the work and the clients continues to grow and develop in this quickly changing and always dynamic health and fitness industry. Randi recently launched a new Pilates on Demand platform for the folks who are still homebound, trying to get a workout in between taking care of kids or work calls, or adjusting to life in the “new normal.” Try it out for free by visiting her website.

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 began this Pilates journey searching for a way out of back pain 20 plus years ago. I was a professional dancer; ballet, modern, etc., and I had ruptured a disc in my lumbar spine (L5,S1 to be exact). I was constantly searching for a way out of pain, even as I continued to dance. Surgery was out of the question for me. I didn’t want to go down that road. So I got deeply into massage therapy, which helped me but always seemed so temporary — never quite fixing the problem, but putting on a nice band-aid for a short time. Then I discovered Pilates while living in Aspen, Colorado. Pilates was, and still is, the one thing that kept me healthy, strong, and most importantly, free of pain. I learned how and what to strengthen to support my spine and the muscles surrounding my spine. Really from day one, I was hooked. I have learned so much about balance in the body, how to use my body more efficiently, discovering smaller muscle groups I never even knew I had! 22 years now and two babies later, I feel amazing. I wanted to share this knowledge with the many others who are suffering from chronic pain or injuries, or working towards goals they want to achieve and don’t know quite where to begin.

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?

There have been so many stories of healing, change and perseverance. It is hard to pick one. But I will tell you about one of my earliest clients who is now one of my closest, dearest friends. Her name is Ruth. I was teaching in my early days at East Bank Club here in Chicago. She came to so many of my mat classes there — a real groupie! (Those pre-COVID classes used to pack in 70 people on any given weekend!!) So she came up to me one day and said she wanted to do some private lessons with me on the equipment. Lessons at EBC were all on just the mat, but at the time I had several pieces of apparatus all over my house. I asked Ruth what was she looking to achieve or accomplish through Pilates. She said she was on several meds, her legs were in horrible pain, her back hurt, her shoulders were weak, the list went on and on. Really, you name it, she was in pain. She was also a larger woman — tall and a little overweight — really the most intimidating potential client. I thought to myself, “I have no idea where to begin with this woman. I have no idea what I can do for her.” But she was all in, and she trusted me. I had been teaching for less than a year out of Pilates training and felt this was out of my league. Well, I channeled one of my mentors, Amy Alpers, and heard her in my ear saying to trust myself, trust this Pilates method, have confidence in my capabilities and listen to the body in front of me. That’s what I did. Slowly over our time together, she moved off ALL meds, lost a bunch of weight, became significantly stronger and more mobile, her aches and pains were a thing of the past, and she took such a deep interest in yoga that she became a yoga instructor herself! To this day we still do Pilates together, and she has become the picture of health and wellbeing! I changed her life — actually we did it together. That’s what I do, and that’s why I do it. That is what keeps me going and feeds my soul. Making a difference in people’s lives through health and wellness. Giving people access to their own bodies and helping them realize their potential. Isn’t that amazing? Access to your own body’s health. Even saying that out loud brings tears to my eyes. People don’t know how much potential they even have. Incredible to me. So that’s my job.

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 made so many mistakes when I first set out to open my own Pilates studio back in 2000. I had passion for what I was teaching, but I really did not have a lot of experience with the business aspect. Trial and error were my foundations, and I didn’t mind it. I learned so much through all the mistakes I made. But, honestly, Pilates was so hot in the beginning, and I was one of the first in Chicago to open a studio. Business was growing so fast, and people were so interested in trying this NEW exercise regimen that was sweeping the nation. I literally had no time to study business. I just opened my doors and went to work. Thankfully, I had a lot of folks who I looked to for advice along the way. I learned very quickly about the need to hire outside help for bookkeeping, accounting, for the things that weren’t my expertise, so that I could do what was my expertise…teaching. But looking back to those early days, I was apprehensive to ask for too much help. I needed to run the show, and be the show (the Leo in me!). Over the years, I got better at asking for help. I needed instructors, so early on I started a teacher training program that allowed me direct access to well-qualified instructors — the best of the best. I trained passionate potential instructors, making sure every aspect and detail of the methodology was covered. I got to a point where I needed front desk help, and over time I employed up to 16 instructors! We were having a ball.

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?

Many people have helped me along the way. After 20+ years in this business, I have come across so many different people that have impacted my career and my life. To this day, I still have some of the same clients I started teaching back in the beginning. And so often, clients are the ones who have helped guide my decisions or advised me out of tough situations. I have stayed close to many of my fellow instructors around the country with whom I completed my Pilates certification in Boulder, CO. They teach and own Pilates studios, as well, and oftentimes share the same small business issues that I am experiencing. My family, my brothers and my sister have always been incredible sounding boards at various times of need. I also love to brainstorm with other women I know in business. I have a close friend who has owned a hair salon for as long as I have had my studio. I think she is brilliant, and I often call her for business advice. Even though our businesses are vastly different, we deal with the same issues regarding day-to-day operations, staffing, accounting, marketing, you name it. I actually have several women that I respect that I talk to from time to time. We are all entrepreneurs and struggling with the same things so often. And as women who run small businesses, we all support each other and have each other’s backs.

Ok, perfect. Now 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?

Relative to what we all have been through these last two years, with COVID, quarantining at home, recovering from COVID, dealing with the stresses of losing loved ones, losing jobs, home schooling, taking care of family and friends, and just overall mental health, we are all in need of movement, blood flow, connection, community, love and support. It has always been important to me to provide a safe, loving, supportive environment where anyone can come in for Pilates and find more than just Pilates. I stress — more than Pilates. We all need to get stronger, move without pain, release anxiety, gain flexibility, and, I think, especially at this time of “recovery,” we need human interaction. My job is to guide people in the direction of health as a team. I am not simply telling clients what I want them to do, but rather listening to what they need and working together to achieve any goal they have in mind. And that applies both inside and out. I have received more emails recently than ever before thanking me for persevering, for sticking with it, for staying open during these hard times, and for being there when we all needed someone we could count on. It has been, and continues to be, so gratifying.

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. I feel strongly that the first thing you put in your body in the morning can make an enormous difference in how your body functions throughout the entire day. I make a morning elixir that I have been drinking every morning for about 3 years now. It is meant to reduce inflammation, clean out your gut, get things moving in your intestines, and acts as a prebiotic. The recipe is on my website, but it includes turmeric, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, black pepper and a dash of pure maple syrup, all mixed together in a mug of hot water. I absolutely LOVE this drink, and I swear by it. It is my coffee, as I haven’t had coffee since college. I can’t tell you how many times I have shared this recipe with friends and clients!
2. I am most productive in the morning. I didn’t always know that, and I would often wait until the end of the day to get some important things done, to take on clients at my studio, to work out, etc., and it was always a bad idea. So my latest ‘tweak” is to make a list of what needs to get done, and make sure I tackle it in the early hours of the day when my brain is awake and most creative and productive.
3. I decided to stop trying to fit my round self into a square peg all the time, and as I said earlier, listen to my intuition. I literally have conversations with myself, sometimes even out loud! “Randi, is that a good idea? Is that the best choice for you? Will you regret this choice later today?” I am always encouraging my clients to talk to themselves as if talking to a friend. We advise our friends and family clearly and from the heart, but we don’t always listen to our own advice. So advise yourself as if advising a friend, and then listen. People may think you are nuts. But I guarantee they go home later and give it a try!
4. I am a list maker. I used to just make my lists in my head. I thought I didn’t really need to write them down and would get them done eventually. Well, I started to get forgetful! Writing things down, no matter how insignificant these tasks may be, made all the difference in the world for me. I no longer had to store so much in my head, therefore I had room for other thoughts. I started crossing things off on little scraps of paper, and eventually, I graduated to keeping my lists in my phone.
5. Returning texts and calls right away. This is a life changing tweak I have made in my life, and it is definitely still a work in progress. I try my hardest to respond right away — at least a “thank you, I will get back to you,” flagging the important emails, so I don’t lose track of them. I find this is important especially when it comes to my business. Existing and potential clients almost always thank me for my quick responses and are so appreciative. Not only is it good client service, but it’s good business — getting a response while this person is motivated to get fit or make a change is effective. And it shows that I care about them, that they matter to me. This is a first impression, and it needs to be professional, warm, caring, and informative. The same goes for returning texts. It is so easy to respond in the moment, even if it’s a “I’ll get back to you later.”

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

More accessible wellness! And what a perfect time for this question, as I have recently launched my online Pilates On Demand platform. I am so proud of the content thus far. I realize folks are still apprehensive about going to a gym or Pilates studio. Or they are taking care of kids and/or working from home and don’t have a lot of control over their schedules. So I brought Pilates to you with a library of over 20 classes (and growing!). There are various class lengths, each or which tackles different needs & goals. It is such a convenient and affordable opportunity for folks to continue to take care of themselves while stuck at home, traveling for work, etc.

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, loaded question. I mean, it is all so important to me. I try to live my life in a way that is sustainable for the planet, as I know that is in the best interest of our health as human beings. But there are so many other issues that stick with me, such as women’s rights and right to choose, Black Lives Matter and diversity, vaccinations and public health, climate change, etc.

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

Please do! On Instagram, people can find us under @frogtemplechicago, Facebook under @FrogTemple and our website is https://www.frogtemple.com/. People can also email me anytime at [email protected] or call the studio directly (the old-fashioned way!) at 773–489–0890. Better yet, stop in and enjoy your first mat class for FREE or half off a first timer equipment group class. Our YouTube channel is coming soon, so look out for that, as well.

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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Women In Wellness: Randi Whitman of Frog Temple Pilates 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.

Dr Kourtney Sanfelice of Balanced Wellness Solutions: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically Improve Your Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Gain Control of Stress with Purpose — I do this with my toolbox of holistic tools. This is not an easy task and will change most days for people. It requires you to pause, reflect, and identify what is causing stress or anxiety in your daily life. If is something that is unchangeable, find the things that bring you peace: yoga, meditation, massage therapy, breath work, petting your dog, talking to a friend, crocheting, baking or anything else that you enjoy.

As a part of our series about “5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kourtney Sanfelice.

Dr. Kourtney Sanfelice is a Functional Medicine Practitioner, Pharmacist, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Yoga/Fitness Instructor and CBD Specialist. CBD education became her passion as she learned the benefits of the amazing plant by transforming her own health, tapering off a medication she was taking for 16 years with one week of a daily CBD regimen. Over the past five years, Kourtney helped hundreds of people achieve their health and wellness goals using CBD.

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Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the story about how you first got involved in fitness and wellness?

I graduated in 2005 from Temple University School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia. A few years after graduating, I left my corporate retail pharmacist position to work from home for a mail order pharmacy. I made this change in order to fulfill my desire to be a stay-at-home mom (I was pregnant, expecting my son in a few short months) but still maintain my career as a pharmacist. Working at home was not ideal for me, as I was not working directly with people.

After my son was born, I started taking Zumba classes to lose my pregnancy weight. I was encouraged by my instructor, who loved my upbeat energy, to get licensed to teach Zumba classes. I received a group fitness certification through the American Aerobics and Fitness Association of America and started teaching Zumba several times a week at the local YMCA and a small dance studio. It was so much fun and rejuvenated my mind, body, and soul. I eventually started working at an independent, family-owned pharmacy where I was able to connect with patients and help them with their health and wellness goals. I ultimately found my passion in educating people using professional grade CBD oral tinctures.

I have worked one-on-one and helped hundreds of people achieve improved health and wellbeing with CBD. Eventually, my focus expanded to helping people holistically, not only with CBD but also with supplements, herbs, nutraceuticals, and nutrition. I became a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach through The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which further deepened my knowledge of integrative and functional medicine. I also received my certification as a Functional Medicine Specialist through the Functional Medicine Business Academy. I now work as an independent community pharmacist and have my own functional medicine practice, Balanced Wellness Solutions, LLC, where I serve as a mentor, educator, and clinician to help clients find balance in their everyday lives, manage stress, improve nutrition, address the root causes of health issues, and obtain personal wellness goals.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

My journey from one end of the healthcare spectrum, where I started as a corporate retail pharmacist, to the opposite end, where I now practice holistic care and functional medicine, has been mind-blowing. As a pharmacy student and corporate retail pharmacist, I learned about the human body, how it functions and malfunctions, and how to use pharmaceuticals to “fix” those malfunctions. I learned how drugs work on different conditions, as well as side effects, dosing, drug-drug interactions, drug-condition interactions and how to safely dispense, advise and recommend treatment. I now often cringe when I fill certain prescriptions and spend a great deal of time in my practice reaching out to people to make sure they are taking the proper supplements to replenish what they are depleting when taking certain medications and often provide guidance as to how to substitute prescription medications with more natural products and treatments. While there certainly is a need for traditional Western medication and prescriptions, the big focus of my practice is to help my clients balance traditional medicine with holistic and natural solutions.

The process for dosing CBD runs totally counter to the traditional pharmacist dosing process. CBD dosing is extremely patient-specific, as it is used for so many different conditions related to our endocannabinoid system and our bodies’ homeostasis. Teaching people to go into CBD dosing with an open mind to figure out what they need is the polar opposite of what I have learned and taught as a pharmacist. But it works, and it works well!

I started using CBD for anxiety and episodic panic attacks when some CBD samples arrived in my pharmacy over five years ago. I was intrigued and wanted to learn more. I started researching and decided to give CBD a try. In one week, I tapered off citalopram (Celexa), an anti-depressant that kept my anxiety under control for over 16 years (except for during my pregnancy) and never looked back! Of course, my anxiety is a work in progress that I address every day, but I am now armed with a holistic toolbox of resources that enables me to avoid taking a medication with so many chemicals and side effects. What I am learning now as I deepen my knowledge of functional medicine is the relationship between my anxiety and my hormones and other health issues that I have experienced over the years.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

There have certainly been a few “mishaps,” as I always try new products or treatments on myself or close family and friends before I start with clients. Using CBD has been quite a journey for me. There was a lot of trial and error on my behalf as I taught myself about CBD. Six years ago, the CBD market was nothing like it is today. The education was limited, the products were much less polished, and there was a huge legal gray area, as laws were in flux in many states.

One day, about five years ago, I was taking my CBD tincture, which back then was a bottle with no markings. A “dropperful” was a different quantity to whomever drew it up (whereas today packaging is labeled for dosing and specific concentrations). I took a “dropperful” of “high concentrate” CBD oil. My syringe sputtered as my bottle was getting low. I decided that I needed more to get the full dose that had been helping me therapeutically. Well, I guess I filled up the syringe all the way and only meant to put half the dropper in (remember, no actual dose). About an hour later, I am not sure what I was feeling, but it was pretty “trippy.” If you are taking a quality product, you should not get impaired, given the small amount of THC (0.3% or less), but in this case I felt very “strange” to say the least. I am not sure how this was possible with the small amount of THC that was supposedly in the bottle, but I was getting a first-hand lesson in the difference in product quality, integrity, and labeling. I now preach to my patients to learn their sources so that this doesn’t happen to them. You want to know what you are putting in your body, especially if you are using it to treat specific conditions, particularly serious conditions. If you are treating seizures, you want to be darn sure you are taking the correct product and dose, even if it is “just a plant.”

I have researched and tried many brands on the market, and, while the industry has come a long way in general, it is crucial to pay attention to what you are using. There are approximately 3,500 CBD brands on the market, and approximately 93% of them are adulterated and mislabeled. Not all CBD is created equal. Go to a healthcare professional who can educate you on how to use the various CBD products, the difference between products, and most importantly, the purity and quality of products. Anyone can slap a label on something and call it their own. If you choose to do your own research, you need to find out the farming process, where the hemp came from, its genetics, the cannabinoids included, and a certificate of analysis that describes the integrity of the product. I want people to understand that they should seek help from someone who is experienced so that they can safely achieve their therapeutic best!

Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?

I feel that I have a unique, broad spectrum of knowledge to help my clients. I started with my Doctor of Pharmacy degree back in 2005, worked in corporate retail and mail order pharmacy, and eventually in a family-owned independent pharmacy. I taught group fitness and Zumba for about six years, and I am currently finishing up 2021 with my certification as a Yoga instructor and Reiki practitioner. I am a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach as well as a Certified Functional Medicine Specialist. I treat each client as an individual, helping them with their own personal needs. My wide background of education, knowledge and experience helps me to guide my clients on their path to wellness, whatever that looks like to them.

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?

Yes! I am so grateful for my very best friend, Theresa Moore, who is like a big sister to me. She has had an enormous impact on me in both my personal and professional life. I met Theresa when I was at a very transitional point in my life. I was in an unhealthy marriage and had a monotonous job that offered little of the personal rewards that I now enjoy. Theresa has been an amazing friend who helped me find my self-worth that I lost along the way. Some days were harder than others as I went through a divorce and started my life over, which was a very scary process. Theresa encouraged me to follow my dreams and to never give up. She continues to challenge me to be the best version of myself and helps keep me grounded when I need support. But my gratitude goes beyond our very special friendship. This past year Theresa created a self-awakening program that was designed to provide a 200-hour Yoga instructor certification. However, this program was so much more than that. It was an amazing tribe of women who grew together. We learned so much about ourselves and each other through Yoga, meditation, Reiki, holistic self-care, workshops, and book club discussions. It was a life-changing experience of self-growth and awakening. This program taught me so much about myself, enabling me to better serve my clients in the functional medicine space.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, exercise more, and get better sleep etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the 3 main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?

Yes, it is so simple to say the obvious things that we should all do to be “healthy,” but the reality is so much more complex, as every person has their own goals, momentum, stress, and health issues. What is simple for some people is not always easy for others, for a variety of reasons. Each client must be treated as an individual with their own needs, goals, and obstacles. The main things that I see my clients needing help with are:

1. Accountability — Having someone to check-in with, someone to be a support system and a cheerleader. Not all people need this, but for some it is essential for them either to get started or to keep going.
2. Societal Pressures — So many people feel an extreme amount of stress trying to keep up with our fast-paced, technology-driven society, with busy schedules and the need to balance work, family, friends, social activities, health and wellness and physical activity. We live in a world where you can get anything pretty much immediately with the push of a button. No matter what a client needs help with, anxiety almost always becomes part of the equation when we meet and start working on goals. There is always a root cause for this anxiety, and my goal is to address and treat it.
3. Mindset — Patients should seek to evaluate and modify their lifestyles on a daily basis. The key is to focus on the positives and the things that we are grateful for in our lives. There are days that we are going to fail. We are going to have days with poor nutrition, missed workouts or lack of physical activity. There will be days that we didn’t drink enough water or drank too much alcohol or coffee. There will be obstacles every day, but it is important not to give up. We need to keep going, whether we are progressing, derailed, maintaining, or taking baby steps. Every day is a blessing.

Can you please share your “5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”? (Please share a story or an example for each, and feel free to share ideas for mental, emotional and physical health.)

1. Gain Control of Stress with Purpose — I do this with my toolbox of holistic tools. This is not an easy task and will change most days for people. It requires you to pause, reflect, and identify what is causing stress or anxiety in your daily life. If is something that is unchangeable, find the things that bring you peace: yoga, meditation, massage therapy, breath work, petting your dog, talking to a friend, crocheting, baking or anything else that you enjoy.
2. Keep Active/Challenge Yourself — Keep both your body and your mind active. Whether it is going on a nature walk or hike, a high intense cardio training, or my new favorite, a fun Peloton Bike ride! Challenge yourself. Do a fun themed puzzle or find a cool Lego to construct, create a DIY household project, or read an interesting book and learn something new.
3. Join a Group — Whether is a book club, a fitness group, game club or dog training group, it’s always fun to make new friends or connect with old friends with common interests!
4. Trade Healthy Recipes with Family/Friends — You are what you eat! Finding things that are healthy and delicious and make them part of your lifestyle. Then share your heart-warming meal or treat with someone you love! Eating well should be part of a life-long journey, no dieting required!
5. Create a Joy Jar — Yes, as big, or as little as you want! Decorate it from your heart. Every day, I add little things to it that bring me gratitude. Sometimes it’s just a little note or word on a piece of paper that reminds me how my life is blessed. They are little reminders that make my heart happy.

As an expert, this might be obvious to you, but I think it would be instructive to articulate this for the public. Aside from weight loss, what are 3 benefits of daily exercise? Can you explain?

1. Improve Mental Health — Get those endorphins flowing!
2. Establish a Routine — Have a daily regimen that keeps you well-rounded and balanced!
3. Improve Physical Health — Get that heart rate up to help prevent disease and promote overall wellness!

For someone who is looking to add exercise to their daily routine, which 3 exercises would you recommend that are absolutely critical?

What’s most important is that you consistently keep active and moving.

1. 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity daily to get the heart rate up! Even just simple walking, take it at your own pace.
2. Yoga for stretching and keeping limber. Again, take it at your own pace, whether it’s five or ten Sun Salutations upon waking in the morning or an active Vinyasa class.
3. Keep your muscles toned and strong, no weights required. You can use free weights to fit your body type, or just use your body’s natural resistance (push-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, for example).

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is my all-time favorite book! The constant theme in The Alchemist is to pursue your dreams and follow what your heart desires. Wherever your heart leads you, you will find your treasure. In the book, a boy travels from his homeland in search of a treasure. He encounters many obstacles along the way and ultimately discovers a “treasure” within himself resulting from his experiences, the people that he met and the lessons that he learned.

This is a must-read for all, no matter what journey they are on or what path they are following!

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start 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 want people to know that there is no fast and easy way to health and wellness. It is an ongoing, life-long journey of choices, not a quick-fix or easy answer. It sounds funny coming from a career pharmacist, but I am all about my patients reducing their reliance on pharmaceuticals to the extent possible and changing their underlying lifestyles to be the healthiest forms of themselves. This is a daily process, and we are all constant works in progress. There is not and will never be a magic pill or uniform answer, as every person is an individual with his or her own unique needs. As I learned in my education at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, we must balance the nutrition on and off our plates to achieve health, wellness, and happiness.

When working with myself and my clients, my goal is to figure out the cause of disease or health conditions and treat them from the root cause up.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“The Secret of Getting Ahead is Getting Started.” — Mark Twain

I have always waited for “the perfect time” to get started doing things, especially starting my own business. The truth is that there is no perfect time! Just get started, even if it is with tiny steps, one at a time. The little things turn into bigger things, and dreams start becoming reality. I was struggling starting my own functional medicine practice until I met Dr. Christine Manukyan, who changed my life and put my career on a new path that I never imagined was available to me. When I joined Dr. Christine’s Functional Medicine Academy, she taught me how to become focused on getting started, and that the learning process will continue forever. There is nothing to wait for. Get into the messy action and things will fall into place. I took a leap of faith, and I did just that. My functional medicine practice is growing every day and I love working one-on-one and in groups with my clients. By focusing on what I can do, instead of what can go wrong, and having the mindset of moving forward every day, I have taken my practice to new levels, and I am helping people achieve their health and wellness goals.

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 whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Wow! This is a hard one! But someone who has impacted me at some rough times in my life is Mel Robbins. I just love her genuine and sincere personality. Mel is so real in describing her own struggles, past and present, that I feel like I could relate and chat with her as a girlfriend over coffee about anything and receive fantastic, practical, judgment-free advice! Her five second rule and daily journal changed my life. It ties into my quote from the last question. Just get on your feet and get started! It doesn’t matter how big or small the task. Just move forward!

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

Website: balancedwellnesssolutions.net

Podcast: Balanced Wellness Solutions with Kourtney (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, Castbox, Amazon Music, Stitcher)

IG: Dr.Kourtney.Sanfelice

Facebook: Kourtney Chichilitti Sanfelice

The Wellness Pharmachic

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

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Dr Kourtney Sanfelice of Balanced Wellness Solutions: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Whitney DiFoggio of Teeth Talk Girl on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Get up and move! A simple walk around the block can really change the vibe of your entire day. I personally have been LOVING daily yoga and stretching for a clear mind.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Whitney DiFoggio, a Registered Dental Hygienist and Founder of Youtube Channel, Teeth Talk Girl and TeethTalkGirl.com.

Over the past five years, Whitney has leveraged the web to share information surrounding the importance of oral health worldwide through her social media accounts and website. With over 232K subscribers and over 44 million views, Whitney’s YouTube channel, “Teeth Talk Girl,” helps educate the general public on how to keep up their oral health. In addition to her Youtube Channel, Whitney recently co-founded a company called Happy Teeth where for every item purchased, an oral health kit is donated to someone in need. Whitney graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and attended Prairie State College for Dental Hygiene.

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?

Thank you so much for having me! So, I’ve always loved both teeth and acting. It was hard for me to decide if I wanted to study theater or dentistry in college. Long story short, I chose dental hygiene school and did some acting on the side throughout college. After I graduated, I was working full-time as a dental hygienist and loving it, but I started to miss acting and that “on-camera energy” so much. I was unable to audition for most shows and film projects due to my rigorous work schedule, so I thought why not get my “entertainment energy” out on my own by making videos about teeth at home! At first, I truly thought I would just send the videos to my friends and family, but then I posted one onto YouTube and a bunch of people started watching and requesting more! It was super organic how it all came together and my audience has been growing ever since. Combining my passions of both teeth and acting/being on camera simply just makes sense and aligns with my life. Now, 6 years later, my YouTube channel (YouTube.com/TeethTalk) has also expanded into a dental health platform on my website (teethtalkgirl.com) where you can find both articles and videos about countless dental health topics (information about bad breath, oral cancer screenings, bleeding gums, teeth whitening, etc.). I am so proud of my dental health platform (Teeth Talk Girl) which provides free dental health education to the public, and I’m so happy to be sharing my story!

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?

The most interesting thing that has continually happened to me was stressing out every time something was “the biggest and most important thing I’ve ever done” because I’ve come to realize that the next “big and important thing” will ALWAYS be bigger and more important than the last thing.

For example, when I was taking my dental hygiene board exams, I remember feeling the most stressed and nervous I’ve ever felt, to the point where it made me dizzy and lightheaded. That has happened every time I do something important, such as signing a big contract, creating a big video, etc., ever since.

What I’ve learned is that there is no reason for me to feel like that. I need to understand that when I am prepared to do my best, I need to trust myself to do my best. Trusting myself was one of the hardest lessons to learn (especially because I’m an overthinker), but now that I’m slowly getting better at it, I have SO much less stress in my life.

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 would have to say my biggest mistake was thinking I could do it all. I was working full time chairside (as a clinical dental hygienist) in addition to working full time on my business, which consisted of both my YouTube videos and my oral health website. As I started expanding my business and hiring more help, I thought things would slow down and I could continue to work fulltime chairside (because I love it so much)! But I quickly learned that BURNOUT IS REAL and I could not continually juggle a million things. Trying to work three full time jobs was not healthy for me. Even though I loved it, my body was burning out. So the best thing I learned was that it’s okay to love multiple things, but it’s not okay to overwhelm yourself trying to do them all. Balance is key to a happy and healthy life.

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 goal of my work is to educate EVERYONE about the importance of dental health. Most of us were never properly educated on how to floss, for example! I, myself, didn’t learn how to use proper flossing techniques until I was in dental hygiene school. Everyday I have either my patients at work or the comments on my videos tell me how they didn’t know either. So, with my social media, I’m able to reach a large number of people each day to share awareness about the importance of dental health and proper home care techniques in caring for our mouths.

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. Make sure to take time out of the day to care for yourself: whether it be a bubble bath, listening to music, or even 5 minutes of silence while you lay in bed. Self-care is really important and I would say it’s critical for a healthy life.

2. Don’t let brushing and flossing your teeth feel like a chore. My whole message on my social media is how such simple things that take less than 2 minutes can change your overall life. Gum disease is related to many conditions, such as diabetes and heart conditions. So brushing and flossing is not just for “fresh breath”: it can actually prevent gum disease, which contributes to better wellbeing.

3. Connecting with your loved ones is the most important thing in my life! Even if you are unable to physically see the people you love, scheduling a virtual hangout such as a phone call, zoom, or texting can be an immediate mood booster.

4. Get up and move! A simple walk around the block can really change the vibe of your entire day. I personally have been LOVING daily yoga and stretching for a clear mind.

5. Volunteer! Honestly, sometimes we are just “doing the motions” in life: working, eating, sleeping, repeat. However, when you add volunteering into your life, it gives you an opportunity to both serve and grow.

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 think if a clear message about how dental health directly relates to your overall health went mainstream (not just on social media) then more people would know and understand this concept! So many people tell me that they had NO IDEA that gum disease directly relates to heart disease, for example. And oftentimes, when patients learn this information, they end up working harder and putting more effort into their dental home care. So, the movement would be making more mainstream media content regarding dental health (even if it were to be something like a comedy television show about a dental office) to help gain awareness and help the public start thinking more about the importance of healthy teeth.

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

1. “Stop caring SO MUCH about what you look like.”

I used to spend so much time making sure I looked super-camera-ready for my videos until I realized it’s way more important to spend that extra time on other, more important, things. Time is important and use it wisely.

2. “You can’t do it all…even if you think you can.”

I’ve always been a so-called “busy girl” who tries to juggle it all, but I’ve come to the point of burnout due to working full-time clinically as a traditional dental hygienist and full-time creating “Teeth Talk Girl” dental health YouTube videos and oral health website. Now that I work part-time clinically and have help with my videos and website, I now also have time to breathe!

3. “Breathe.”

I never realized how important meditation and yoga could be until I started reading a bunch of motivational books and “boss girl” type books. Every single author in these books seems to mention something about daily yoga or meditation or even practicing some type of faith. Whichever you choose, I would suggest adding it into your daily routine.

4. “Stop perfecting everything.”

I think most dental hygienists tend to be detail-oriented and borderline perfectionists due to the type of job we do. However, when it comes to YouTube, social media, and building a brand, you have to just keep moving and be okay with things not being “perfect” at the start.

5. “Companies aren’t always nice.”

It was a huge wake up call when I realized that some companies care more about money than helping people. I’d never dealt with anything like that before so it was really hard to take in. I’ve always been lucky to work with people who all morally feel the same way I do, so going from my small private dental office group to the big corporate world of dentistry was definitely different and scary. Being mentally prepared for uncomfortable business situations is something to always keep in mind.

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

Mental health! Dental anxiety is a real thing. So many patients have past childhood trauma and/or fear of the dentist. Knowing that so many patients are nervous about visiting the dental office, I’m determined to help educate and care for all patients so they can comfortably receive dental care.

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

My YouTube channel is YouTube.com/TeethTalk and my Instagram is @teethtalkgirl. In addition, my website is teethtalkgirl.com and I also have a facebook page (@teethtalkgirl) where I post my YouTube videos and website articles as well!

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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Women In Wellness: Whitney DiFoggio of Teeth Talk Girl 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.

Women In Wellness: Debbie Rosas of Nia on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Live skin to skin. Being touched by the world and touching the world in return is our most intimate and pervasive sense. The skin is our largest organ and is constantly touching and being touched. But connecting that to pleasure, we can experience deep wellness throughout our body and inner being. My feet are the hands that touch the earth, and have 7,000 nerve endings. When those nerves can receive sensation from the ground up, we can feel the pulse of the world around us resonate within. Sense the fabric on your body, touch the bark of the tree you walk past, embrace the water that you swim in. These are amazing experiences when done intentionally.

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

Debbie Rosas is the founder and co-creator of the Nia® Technique. Dedicated lifelong to self-healing and self-mastery, Debbie has been a pioneer in the body-mind fitness industry since 1976. Credited with establishing the mind-body fitness category, she is a leading fitness innovator, teacher, author, choreographer, performer, healer and artist whose work greatly influences the lives of thousands worldwide. After nearly 40 years, Debbie continues to offer classes, workshops and trainings online and in-person around the world.

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?

It’s interesting, because I feel like people today know me as someone who cherishes the body and mind connection. For quite some time now, I’ve been heavily involved in the fitness/wellness community, and my passion has been to help people uncover and understand the relationship between and within their internal selves and the external world around them.

But I wasn’t always Debbie Rosas, founder of Nia — once upon a time, I was disconnected from and unaware of the beautiful relationship that could exist between my mind and body. I grew up with multiple learning disabilities and somatosensory illnesses — I struggled with hearing and seeing, reading and directionality, and my body didn’t feel like a safe place for me to be within. I experienced a deep lack of confidence when it came to both my internal self and my external relationship with the world around me.

As I grew older, I began to dive deeper within my body and speak to it. I started to uncover my inner Voice, a way for me to communicate not only with my physical self but also with my spirit and soul. That was when I began to feel a true sense of safety from within.

From that point on, I began to approach life as an artist, bringing with me a deep curiosity not only of the world around me, but also of the incredible being that was me — my body, my mind, my soul and my spirit.

As a stay-at-home mother, I had a nagging feeling that I needed to do something. I began by becoming a commercial artist. After I had my second child, I experienced a deep depression. At the time, postpartum depression wasn’t a term people used or understood, so I wasn’t able to label these feelings, but I knew within me that there was something incredibly off balance. Near my house, there was a gym for women. One day, I decided to try it out, see if losing weight and feeling better about my appearance would make me feel better about my internal self, too.

Something incredible happened that day. After doing a quick exercise, I stepped off the machine, and felt as though an emotional weight had been lifted from me. I was perplexed — how could I move my leg, and feel something else, deep inside? A short while later, a friend brought me to an aerobics class. Once again, I felt the same sensational transformation within my spirit.

Walking out of that class, that same Voice within me that had guided me all my life said, “You’re going to create a movement program that uses the body. No machines — make a program of what you know.” And that’s what I did — I created my first fitness program, called the Bod Squad. Not only did we offer aerobics, but we also included a focus on awareness and meditation and offered education about health, wellness and diet. This wasn’t common at the time, and I knew we were onto something, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it.

A few years went by, and I wanted to find a way to honor and celebrate the growth our students were showing. A martial artist invited me to his dojo to learn about the belt ranking system. When I took my shoes off, I found the missing piece to what I had been trying to accomplish at Bod Squad. I thought to myself, “How have I been teaching people to move without sensation? How have I been telling people to move the body, but not sense the body?”

That’s when I set out to create something new — Nia. While the name comes from Non Impact Aerobics, the program is so much more. Nia helps people uncover the sensation of feeling connected to themselves, which is something many people don’t even realize they’re missing. We offer people the opportunity to look within and become the conscious leader of their own body and life.

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?

With Nia’s creation came the never-ending question — can you get a cardiovascular workout without jumping up and down? While I certainly knew the answer was a resounding yes, I knew that we had to dig deeper to defend the brand we had worked so hard to build. So, we invited a doctor from St. Francis Sports Medicine Clinic to come and run a test: could Nia as a program provide cardiovascular conditioning?

The results were clear — not only could Nia offer cardiovascular conditioning, but the program had a number of other incredible benefits. We could prevent many of the muscular injuries that occured during traditional, high-impact aerobics, and people of all shapes, sizes and fitness levels could take part at their own individual paces and intensities.

The main takeaway for me, though, was something much deeper. After hearing a scientist say all these proven benefits of Nia, I felt an immense wave of confidence, and I realized I had to validate every single piece of the Nia process. I had to find specific answers to each step: why was participating barefoot important? Why did we encourage people to ebb and flow out of different levels? Why did we practice on three planes of the body? I began looking more intentionally at the form and function of the human body, rather than just what made me feel good. And by using the science of the human body as a litmus test, paired with the innate focus on our inner minds and wellness, we’ve been able to turn Nia into something incredible.

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?

My biggest mistake was thinking everyone would immediately see the same extraordinary benefits of Nia that I do. When I realized that you could get fit without punishing yourself, I imagined everyone else would immediately leap at the opportunity as well. That’s not what happened, though. Early on, I remember explaining to someone the incredible experience behind Nia — that we were getting people to move with pleasure. That person immediately responded, “People don’t care about pleasure when they’re exercising — they need to feel the pain to know it’s working.” That’s when I realized that I had to change an entire thought consciousness within our society, and show people that “No pain, no gain” isn’t the only possible mentality when it comes to getting fit.

Now, I’ve realized that people will come to Nia when the time is right for them. And once they arrive, they’ll experience the sensation of working in a relationship with their body, rather than forcing it into an uncomfortable position or tension.

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?

Ultimately, Nia isn’t just about “fitness.” Instead, our program is designed to help people find healing and comfort within themselves. We work with a lot of people living with short and long term illnesses. Often, when people are diagnosed with something like cancer or Parkinson’s, they feel disempowered, like there’s no solutions or actions they can take upon themselves to better their lives. But making decisions about your own movement and truly listening to your body are things that anyone can do, even when dealing with a horrific prognosis. It makes me proud that these people can come to Nia and experience agency in their own bodies. I think it has an incredible impact both on them and their loved ones.

The same is true with mental burdens. Especially amidst the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a large number of people dealing with depression and stress. Through our Zoom and on-demand classes, we were able to give people the opportunity to bring their emotional spirit to the dancefloor and relieve their bodies, minds and spirits of some of the tension they were carrying.

We had been offering online classes before the pandemic, but the past few years have been the times where we’ve really seen the impact that our Zoom classes can have. Taking part in the Nia experience within your own home is freeing in it’s own way. We realized that when people are in front of others in person, there can be a bit of “stage fright.” But when they’re in their own space, people are able to move like nobody’s watching. They can use their own voice and feel less inhibition.

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. Live skin to skin. Being touched by the world and touching the world in return is our most intimate and pervasive sense. The skin is our largest organ and is constantly touching and being touched. But connecting that to pleasure, we can experience deep wellness throughout our body and inner being. My feet are the hands that touch the earth, and have 7,000 nerve endings. When those nerves can receive sensation from the ground up, we can feel the pulse of the world around us resonate within. Sense the fabric on your body, touch the bark of the tree you walk past, embrace the water that you swim in. These are amazing experiences when done intentionally.
2. Use your voice. Especially if you’re living alone or working in a home office, you may not be exercising the tongue and the mouth much. Keep them coordinated by speaking out loud. Read a book out loud, talk to a news anchor and exhale, using your loud breath. Blending your body and breath can grow your connection to your inner Voice and align you from the inside out.
3. Activate the mindset of RAW. — The practice of RAW (Relaxed body, Alert mind, Waiting) infuses the body with the listening sensation. Particularly in times with stress in our relationships, RAW can help us listen and allow others to find their own engagement without us feeling pressure to fix or change them.
4. Feed the body with five sensations:

• Flexibility. Experience the sensation of energy moving out and along your bones. Lengthen yourself through the crown of your head and give the body what it wants — volume and space.
• Strength. We use strength in everything we do. Packing energy in your bones and squeezing to align yourself allows us to execute movements with ease and grace. This is an art — it’s finding the perfect balance between squeeze and release to create a comfortable awareness and tension within our bodies.
• Mobility. Mobility is the sensation of energy and constant motion. These sensations are happening within our body — our lungs are intaking air, our hearts are pumping our blood, our stomachs are creating energy from the food we eat. By becoming more aware of our inner mobility, we can become one with our bodies and souls.
• Agility. Agility is the starting and stopping of our movement. Our breathing starts and stops, our mind starts and stops as we move from one topic to another. We use our agility when we drive a car, or when we move across the room.
• Stability. When we bring these senses into a workout or everyday activity, we have to have stability. Your life and wellbeing relies on your stability and inner balance. And, when you enter into a workout, your body must stay in a place of resting, readiness and action. We need support from underneath and behind us. Balancing the stimulation that our body experiences allows us to stay healthy and well.

5. Return to the body’s playground. When learning to walk, every able-bodied human goes through five key movements to stand up and walk. By returning to these stages, we can experience inner healing and begin to redevelop our flexibility, strength, mobility, agility and stability in just minutes.

• Embryonic. With your spine on the floor, move like a fish in water. Toss and turn, move from your back to your belly and twist your spine. When we’re on the ground, our body knows we can’t fall, so we experience higher levels of relaxation and relief.
• Creeping. Rest on the floor belly down and begin to move in a lizard-like pattern. Allow the left and right sides of your body to begin organizing themselves into cohesive units.
• Squatting. The squatting portion of this stage can be difficult for some adults, but with time and practice you can regain your inner child’s strength. Enter into a squatting position, similar to a monkey. Feel the parts of your body that have lost resiliency. Shift your body weight and begin reclaiming the flexibility you once held in your hips and legs.
• Standing. Press your feet down into the ground and stand. You’ll experience a blast of inspiration that comes from this sense of balance between gravity and electricity. You’ve freed and aligned the energy systems that go into your body, and can now engage with the world around you in a more thoughtful, balanced way.

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

• Trust your gut. Some people call it your second brain, I call it your first.
• Follow your heart. We’re always guided by meaning and purpose. We should ask ourselves, “How did I end up here? Why am I doing this?”
• Don’t settle for the status quo. Daily, feed your body with new information. Always think: “What else?” Curiosity is one of our greatest gifts.
• Observe the path you’re on. Check the choices and decisions you’re making against their intentions. If my purpose is to inspire people to feel and heal, then I need to ask myself if that intention was accomplished after every workout or piece of writing.
• See everyone in life as unique and sacred. Rather than thinking you have to compete with someone, recognize and welcome the difference between you and them.

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

I’m incredibly passionate about sustainability of the human heart and the conscious being. I believe that we have lost sight of what it means to be a conscious human: of what it means to be conscious and compassionate. One of our biggest abilities for connection is through our bodies, and yet so many people are unwilling to look each other in the eyes or touch and connect. I hear often that people feel as though they have to protect themselves, but that is how we lose connection with each other. We all have that inner child inside of us. I think it’s incredibly important that we all cherish and nurture that inner child with the space and opportunity to connect. If we don’t start waking up and understanding that we need to touch and connect, we will face the loss of a part of the collective human heart that we won’t be able to get back.

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

To keep up with Debbie and all things Nia visit,

Website: https://nianow.com/

Nia TV: https://www.niatv.fit/

Instagram: @niatechnique

Twitter: @niatechnique

Facebook: @NiaTechnique

YouTube: @NiaTechnique

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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Women In Wellness: Debbie Rosas of Nia 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.

Female Founders: Brittany Lammon of The Chub Rub Patch On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Developing relationships & talking with many people that may or may not be beneficial for your company is key to creating your own success. Always have an open mind. I have created countless new relationships through my own journey. I have also had to sacrifice some relationships that were not beneficial to my vision. This can be hard, but you have to believe in yourself and your product or service and you have to know what is best for your own success. -You have to be comfortable with seeing your own weaknesses and being able to identify areas of opportunity. This goes back to the mistakes I first made when starting this business. I had to be able to see where I was falling short and I had to become comfortable with hiring out to help me with things I wasn’t good at, or things that needed an expert’s touch.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brittany Lammon.

Brittany Lammon, inventor and CEO of her company The Chub Rub Patch, is a makeup and hairstylist to the stars. She currently works with the biggest entertainment industry in the world, the WWE. She travels around the country and the world making the Superstars of the WWE look fabulous with her hair and makeup expertise.

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 been a hairstylist for the past 19 years, and my passion for inventing really started when I invented a tool for hairstylists that helped open bobby pins. I have always been creative and also very passionate about helping women feel more beautiful.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

I would have to say the most interesting story would have to be how I went viral on TikTok multiple times. This is really how my company became a success. We made some fun little videos and seeing the amount of views and the amount of times the video was shared was exciting. The outreach of TikTok is incredible. The comments from women all over the world about how this product was exactly what they were looking for or how much it has helped them was amazing. We are now selling in 10 countries because of TikTok.

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?

Starting your own business is hard and I have made many mistakes since the beginning. When I first started on this journey I really thought I could do it all on my own and I was afraid to ask for help. I think this is a common theme with women no matter what they may undertake. A new mother is afraid to ask for advice because she may be seen as not good enough. A new female director may be afraid to ask for help because she may be seen as not up to the challenge. I learned through countless failures that there are people out there who can give me great advice, and there are people I need to be able to count on to help me. Don’t be afraid to go to those who may have been down this road and ask them to help you.

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?

My sister Megan is really the person who keeps me organized and on top of everything that comes along with running your own business and I am so incredibly grateful to have her by my side through all of this. She definitely is the organized one out of us two. She has the patience of an angel when dealing with me and she runs my day to day operations when I am on the road. She has always been that person that has never questioned any of my endeavors; she only questions what she can do to help me. Megan has always been my biggest fan. She also remembers all of my passwords as well which is a great help.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

I think what is holding back women from founding companies is that we are too scared to fail so we never try it at ALL. When you are passionate about something you just need to start somewhere, even if you fail and have to try again a hundred times. We want to be great at everything we do and all the roles we as women take on- being a mother, wife, friend. We are so worried about what people will think of us if the company isn’t a success that we never try at all. A lot of great ideas are lost that way

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

I believe that as a society we could uplift and support other women’s companies by promoting or advertising one another’s brands/products. I also believe we can come together as a community of women- maybe in group settings or open forums and discuss these issues together. We can help each other find solutions for obstacles that we may share in common. Maybe there is another powerful female founder out there who has been where you are and they can provide help or some sort of mentoring to get you over that obstacle. Companies are predominantly founded by men, and I believe we should not be afraid to ask for advice and professional guidance from successful company founders that are men. That being said I also think women who are brave enough and passionate enough to found a company need to be given the respect and professional courtesy they deserve. Most importantly, my individual belief is that we are all human and we all share a common goal in succeeding as an Entrepreneur. We as a human race regardless of gender need to show support for one another and champion behind anyone who strikes out to start a new company.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Women as a whole put passion behind anything they put their mind to. If women believe in something enough to put their whole heart into it they always achieve it. I am not saying men don’t do the same, but from my experience women pour their passion into everything they truly believe in. What holds a lot of women back is the fear of the unknown, but you will never know what you can succeed in if you don’t try! There is nothing wrong with failing, actually you learn just as much from failing as you do in succeeding. The most important thing is that you can say you did it! If more women could overcome that initial fear of trying (and the fear of failing!) it would increase the percentage of businesses that are founded by women. Celebrating the courage and success of women founders could help inspire other women to do the same!

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

There are a couple myths I would like to address in being a founder of my own company. People may think having your own company is an overnight success, but what many are actually seeing is the end result of years of trying, failing and trying again. They do not see the endless hours that are put into the process. Achieving success in business can be at times what feels like an endless loop of trial and error before the desired final product or service is reached. Some may perceive that success is easy and it just comes to those who try fairly quickly. That unfortunately isn’t the case. You have to develop a work ethic like never before because this is your vision and no one else sees what you see in the end. Working for myself may be the most difficult thing I have ever done. I am in control of my own destiny and I have to make sure I am focused and dedicated because I know no one else is going to force me to finish or is going to tell me how many hours I need to work on this. I am my own boss and my successes and failures fall right back to me.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

I don’t believe everyone is cut out to be a founder of their own company, and that is totally ok. It is the work ethic that is most important. You have to be able to have a clear vision of what you want and know that it will take countless hours, unwavering dedication and the ability to overcome failure. Being a founder takes discipline, dedication, an endless drive to succeed, and the ability to work through obstacles that will throw you off track. Some people are complacent with a 9 to 5 corporate job where they know exactly what they are doing on a day to day basis. Founding your own company means taking on a lot of unknowns and not always having a manager to tell you how to do something or what resources to check out when you have questions or need assistance. Being your own boss and having control of your own destiny is a scary thing, but in the end the taste of success is the sweetest victory ever! But it doesn’t stop once you have achieved the desired outcome; you have to keep being dedicated and have a passion for work each and every day. Continued success means continued passion for what you are doing. It means changing the way you are doing things to meet the needs of the present, while anticipating the needs of the future so you can stay on that road to success.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

-The investment is going to be more than you ever expected. You may need to find avenues to help you with that and that can be tough.

-The amount of hours are endless. This is not a 9–5 job. The projection time for release date or opening may be pushed back later than expected as well. I started this company while still working full time as a hair stylist and makeup artist and traveling much of the time I am doing that. This means I am spending my “off time” still working, and that takes a lot of discipline. You have to be truly invested in your passion to make it work. -You always have to keep evolving. Always staying up with the latest trends, taking courses, and reading new material to keep your business at the top of its game. I am constantly watching Tik Tok, perusing social media and talking to my friends and family to make sure I am providing what people need now

-Developing relationships & talking with many people that may or may not be beneficial for your company is key to creating your own success. Always have an open mind. I have created countless new relationships through my own journey. I have also had to sacrifice some relationships that were not beneficial to my vision. This can be hard, but you have to believe in yourself and your product or service and you have to know what is best for your own success. -You have to be comfortable with seeing your own weaknesses and being able to identify areas of opportunity. This goes back to the mistakes I first made when starting this business. I had to be able to see where I was falling short and I had to become comfortable with hiring out to help me with things I wasn’t good at, or things that needed an expert’s touch.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I try to use my company/product to spread confidence in women every single day! Body shaming is a major issue in today’s society. We don’t talk about how many different body sizes or shapes there are, and if you do not fit into the cookie cutter mold of what is considered beautiful you can be made to feel bad about that. Every woman is beautiful! I want women to be confident in what they wear and how they feel. There is no better feeling in this world than being comfortable in your own skin and feeling beautiful and I truly mean that. My number one goal is to be able to have women be confident and comfortable every single day. No woman should ever feel like they can’t wear a certain style because it brings them discomfort, or their body is not a traditional shape or size. Celebrate the beauty of your own body.

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

I am a huge advocate for women empowerment and I think that is one of the biggest movements in today’s society. WE CAN & WE WILL do anything we put our minds to! We need to be confident and comfortable in everything we do and what better way to do that with women always uplifting women! There is no greater cheerleader than a woman who can celebrate the successes of another woman. Instead of gossiping about how someone looks, give them the empowerment of being able to celebrate their beauty and feel comfortable in their own skin. Cheer your fellow women on, inspire them to achieve the greatness that is inside all of us. Instead of “I told you so” when you see someone failing, say to them “I know you can do this!” Encourage each other to keep trying.

We are very blessed that some very prominent 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? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Someone who I truly think is the biggest innovator in the world is Elon Musk. He is driving society to places that are unheard of and making the unknown possible. He has passion and drive even when people can’t see his vision like he does. I would love to see his mindset and be able to pick his brain on actually what has been his best advice given to him.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Female Founders: Brittany Lammon of The Chub Rub Patch On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.