Day: April 11, 2022

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Build high impact teams that are focused on outcomes, not features. If you structure around features, you continue to perpetuate features whether they are awesome or not.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joanna Lambert, President and GM of Consumer, Yahoo.

New York-based Joanna Lambert is responsible for driving business strategy and growth priorities across Yahoo’s consumer portfolio of properties including Yahoo Mail, commerce, sports and finance products, engaging its 900 million unique global viewers per month. Joanna joined in 2018 as general manager, overseeing strategy and operations of various brands including Yahoo Finance, Tech Crunch, Engadget and Autoblog as well as leading member services. Currently, she also oversees Yahoo’s immersive content and innovation efforts including an NFT experience in collaboration with Rebecca Minkoff at New York Fashion Week.

Prior to Yahoo, Joanna led consumer financial services at Paypal with a mission to democratize financial services for millions of people worldwide. Before PayPal, she was Chief Product Officer and head Operational Excellence for a division at American Express focused on next-gen banking solutions. Joanna holds a Bachelor of Business from Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

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 started my career in corporate communications in Australia. An opportunity with American Express led me to move to the U.S. with my family and we now live in New York City. I was very fortunate at American Express to gain different experiences and move into the business side of the company where I focused on product, strategy, development and design. It was here that I really developed my passion for developing purpose driven, digital consumer products. I then moved to a role leading consumer financial solutions at Paypal.

Working with two of the biggest financial companies was a great experience, but when the opportunity came to work at Yahoo, I could not turn it down. The opportunity to lead one of the world’s largest, trusted sources of content and product on the internet, and the challenge to expand into new industries was very exciting.

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

Over the past 18–24 months, Yahoo has been focused on laying the foundation and building a mobile forward, next generation platform that not only provides users with news and information, but immerses them in the content they consume by really thinking about a 360 experience for consumers and fans across categories like News, Sports and Finance. We have seen our Gen Z audience grow and have risen to become the fifth-largest company in the US for Gen Z in terms of reach, now reaching almost two thirds (68%) of Gen Z audiences in the US. With this growth we have been focused on TikTok as we know this is a platform predominantly used by this age group and keen to ensure we are creating relevant content that reaches younger audiences.. We knew we could be a differentiator on TikTok as a place for younger audiences to access trusted content. Yahoo News was an early breakout success on TikTok, growing to 1.7 million followers in less than two years and setting the standard for how news organizations can inform audiences and successfully create hard news content on the platform.

With the rapid growth of our followers, our Yahoo News TikTok has tapped into an audience of users who are well-versed with new technology, likely skew younger and are actively engaged. Establishing ourselves as an unbiased, trusted brand for timely, accurate news, particularly politics and breaking news, is valuable to our growth, particularly among a younger demographic. Our strategy has really resonated with our audience. In fact, Yahoo News’s recent TikTok coverage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict has resulted in over 10M views, with over 295K unique users tuning in to live streams in just one week and engaging in posts for breaking news, explainers and human interest posts. We added 20K new followers to our TikTok audience and that’s just the start.

Yahoo has also been focused on building an incredible immersive production house and platform, which is renowned for its groundbreaking technology. In February this year, Yahoo partnered with Maisie Schloss, Gen Z fashion prodigy and apprentice to Kanye West, and her label, Maisie Wilen, to present her Fall-Winter 2022 collection to the fashion industry as a digital-first immersive experience at New York Fashion Week (NYFW). Yahoo’s vision for NYFW was to design a digital shopping experience that spoke to the next generation of fashion fans whose wardrobe is made for both the digital and real world, understanding that Gen Z is highly into fashion and curious about the metaverse. The pandemic has increased the desire for a combination of both digital and physical engagement and Yahoo’s industry-leading technology and creativity helped Maisie Schloss to reimagine the consumer journey for her fans by immersing them in the collection, deepening that connection with an experience that made her collection feel fun and cutting-edge.

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?

Yes, I was trying to hold it together as a new mother, while my husband was away at sea with the Australian Navy and working full-time in corporate affairs at a financial services company. It was my first interstate business trip and I assumed it would be easy. On the afternoon of travel, I leave work, pick up my daughter from daycare and find her sitting in a plastic highchair covered head to toe in green paint after having a fabulous time finger painting. It sounds silly now but at the time I was so stressed out and super concerned about missing the flight, taking a green baby on the plane and being judged by everybody on the way.

The lesson was living through the moment and realizing this was not within my control. You can’t control everything and when stuff happens, stay calm and do what you can. Looking back, I was way too focused on what people might think and put unnecessary additional pressure on myself. Now, when I am coaching new parents I find stories like these really resonate and they appreciate the need to be zen in uncontrollable moments and forget what others think. By the way — today I remember the feelings and the pressure and the stress of that day, but I could not recall what the business meeting I was traveling to was about.

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

I have several amazing mentors and sponsors that have helped challenge me to step outside of my comfort zone, advocate for me to try new positions or roles that I hadn’t done before, and were willing to put their brand and reputation on the line to take a chance on me. It has been a combination of people who I have worked closely with who were willing to be advocates and sponsors, as well as people who I worked to build relationships with who provide great external advice. My sponsors or mentors were catalysts that led my move from Sydney to New York City and who led my decision to shift my career focus from Corporate Communications and Financial Relations to being deep in the business of building and growing consumer products at scale.

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

Put the customer first and focus on the overall mission to serve them and then determine the ratio of disruption and new ideas to challenging and fixing the status quo of long standing platforms and products.

An example from the pandemic was our Yahoo Finance team noticing a trend of young consumers turning to social media to learn about cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which is inundated with inaccurate financial information. These new investors are arming themselves with information and taking a nontraditional approach to their investment strategies, moving away from legacy stocks in favor of crypto and meme stocks. We offered a fresh perspective on money management and innovative tools to help these younger consumers navigate their finances. Given it is Finance Literary Month, Yahoo Finance is focused on doubling down on our trusted platform with news and information to help our readers make smart financial decisions, while showcasing and providing information on new asset classes like cryptocurrencies. We also are committed to serving our audience for the current tax season and will provide our Tax Day special on April 12.

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

• Build high impact teams that are focused on outcomes, not features. If you structure around features, you continue to perpetuate features whether they are awesome or not.
• Don’t just manage up and don’t just manage your team, make sure you really build your network and relationships with your peers and cross-functional colleagues because that’s the most important thing.
• We are sometimes bound by what we know and our perspective. Get outside your frame of reference and push yourself beyond what is familiar to you. This is why diversity is so important, it helps teams to consider issues from different perspectives and step away from your day to day to identify and solve global consumer opportunities.

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

We have been disrupting the financial, media and tech spaces for over 20 years and certainly not done yet! We are focused on continuing to innovate and create experiences that really resonate with the youth zeitgeist as we continue to see strong growth with Gen Z. We are constantly thinking about how we can create formats for future generations and how best we can help brands connect to their consumers. We see tremendous opportunities to bring emerging technology to all our Yahoo brands. Right now, we are doubling down on our strategy to keep growing our Gen Z audience ensuring we are creating content and immersive experiences that help inform and engage. Watch this space!

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

As someone who has worked in the financial and technology industries for many years, I have been accustomed to seeing very few women leaders at the table. According to a recent study, as career levels in finance rise, female representation declines, with only 18% of women holding executive-level positions. We have all heard of the ‘confidence gap’ in women and being a disruptor needs confidence and a huge amount of self belief. Not all decisions are going to be popular at first as disruption means change. I have followed the advice of many great leaders I respect, including:

1) Be willing to take risks and step outside your comfort zone, that is when what seems impossible becomes possible.

2) Make sure you share with your leader, your sponsors, your network and your peers what you are trying to do and ask for help.

3) Do the groundwork and gain support *before* the presentation or boardroom meeting. I have observed that a lot of colleagues are really good at pre-briefing and socializing concepts ahead of the decision-making meeting, whereas others are so focused on perfecting their presentation and materials that they miss this vital and very persuasive step.

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

I love podcasts and listen to the full range from storytelling to news to motivation and meditation. Particularly in the last few years, podcasts have been a source of escapism and motivation while working from home. A favorite of mine is actually someone who we have partnered with on a few occasions and I went on the podcast last year — “Super Women” with Rebecca Minkoff. There are some really interesting conversations with such a diverse range of inspirational women. I also really enjoyed recording the show as it was the first time I had spoken on a podcast, and thought it was so interesting having a long conversation about topics that you care about deeply about.

When I want to hear more about current affairs I really enjoy listening to The New Yorker’s “Radio Hour” and then of course, for finance, Yahoo Finance Daily.

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. 🙂

Set an intention every morning for the day and just do it. Change and transformation does not happen overnight — whether it is personal, professional or societal. Breaking down what your goal or aspiration is into daily manageable steps forward can help you overcome procrastination, stop feeling overwhelmed, and make progress towards your goals.

At Yahoo, we are focused on delivering trusted content and product experiences to our global audience. In 2020, when we shifted to work from home across our editorial, product and engineering teams, having a consumer centric mission was critical. Setting daily intentions across the team helped us make monumental shifts from producing live events to online segments, shifting in studio production to producing real-time from our living rooms, through to pivoting our entire product roadmap to support the shifting needs of consumers globally. We all adapted to new ways to work, shop, socialize and our physical and mental health.

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

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

Female Founders: Jessica Cordova Kramer & Stephanie Wittels Wachs of Lemonada Media On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Steph: Have a support system. Again, with two small children at home who have lots of needs, I need to lean on my network of helping hands constantly. From partners to parents to childcare providers. Wouldn’t be able to do this work without tons of help and support

Jess: Health first. If you feel like crap, everything will feel like crap. You have to take care of yourself physically and mentally before anything else.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs.

Jessica Cordova Kramer is co-founder and CEO of the award-winning podcast network Lemonada Media. She began her professional career as a Wall Street lawyer who moonlighted on pro bono domestic violence and refugee cases, then worked for Teach For America and Teach For All for more than a decade. Cordova Kramer lost her younger brother, Stefano, to a long battle with addiction, subsequently co-creating Lemonada with Stephanie Wittels Wachs, who also lost her brother to an overdose.

Stephanie Wittels Wachs is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Lemonada Media. She co-created and hosts Last Day, Lemonada’s award-winning flagship show confronting massive epidemics with humor, compassion, and a quest for progress. Its first season focused on the opioid crisis, which took the life of her brother, writer-producer-comedian Harris Wittels (Parks & Recreation, Master of None). A well-known voice actor appearing in countless anime series and movies, she founded Lemonada Media with Jessica Cordova Kramer, who also lost her brother to an overdose.

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?

Jess: Well, our brothers both died, two years apart, from accidental overdoses. They were our best friends. Steph wrote a best-selling book about losing her brother Harris Wittels, a beloved comedian and writer, and I heard her talking about it on a podcast. At the time, I was working for Crooked Media, and my brother had recently passed away. I was rocked by grief, and Steph was the first person who made me feel like I might make it through.

Steph: A few months before meeting Jess, I received an orange envelope in the mail and inside was a three-page letter. I can’t find the strength to mail a letter on my best day, but this woman managed to do all of this while she was in the throes of grief over the loss of her son to an opioid overdose. In her letter, she told me how her world had come crashing down. How her family was broken. How she’s been crying every single day non stop. But she read my book, and for the first time, she felt hope. When Jess reached out to me, another perfect stranger, and said the exact same thing — ”heard you on the podcast, saw myself in your story, felt hope for the first time” — it was as close to a lightning bolt moment that I’d ever experienced. People are struggling and feeling really alone. The mission for Lemonada was born. Our desire to make the hard things easier combined with my background as a theatre director, voiceover actor, educator, and writer all brought me to where I am today.

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

Steph: While we were in the midst of Season 2 of Last Day, I got a tweet from someone that essentially said, “I was considering ending my life and heard your show and made a different choice.” This was a hugely monumental moment. When we started, I would always say, “Our goal is to save lives.” Seeing actual evidence of it was a profound moment. Keeps you going, even when you’re working on difficult material.

Jess: All of that and then what happened after. People heard Last Day, they started to learn about Lemonada, and decided they wanted to be a part of it in their own way. Andy Slavitt emailed us early in the pandemic and asked us to help him make a podcast that would help people through the pandemic. It was up a week later. Kulap Vilaysak and SuChin Pak had a specific idea about a show about what we buy and what we buy into, and they wanted to do it with us. Our staff too: they care about the world and want to make it better. Sponsors want to align with our content and audience. It’s the best part of all of this, building a community of talent, team members, audience, brands, foundations and other partners who want to make the world suck less together.

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?

Steph: One of the funniest moments was literally the day before we officially launched. Jess and I had worked so incredibly hard to nail the roll out. All of our market research, positioning, branding, assets, newsletters, talking points — everything was super strategic. And then, the night before we’d planned to launch, I posted the announcement video at like, 10pm. TOTALLY BLEW IT. This was our first lesson of many in: We are human! We make mistakes! You can plan and plan and plan but sometimes things won’t go according to plan, and that’s okay! Glad Jess didn’t murder me, and we lived to tell a very hilarious tale.

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?

Jess: Wow. We think about how this all sprung out of the worst thing that ever happened to each of us and our families. So, our brothers and our families.

Steph: 100% agree. We owe everything to our brothers and families.

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?

Jess: Someone sent us a congrats email and shared this article from Pitchbook that said 2% of VC funds went to women-led companies last year. I forwarded it to Steph and was like, “so glad we didn’t know this when we went for it!” It’s discouraging, and the real headline is how few dollars are going to companies led by women of color. I think women have plenty of ideas and solutions and the reorientation is how to ensure that venture funds are able to look at the value women can create for the problems they uniquely experience. From science (better breast pumps!) to tech (apps that help us manage our incredibly busy lives) to media (content that caters to the reality of our lives and makes us feel better, not worse)… there’s such a huge demand for women for products and solutions and women ought to be at the helm of creating more of them.

Steph: When we started Lemonada, I had a baby who was less than a year old and a daughter who was entering Kindergarten. I have an extremely hands-on partner, but regardless, it’s difficult to strike a good balance between caregiving and career. Founding the company with another working mom who also understands the complexities of grief and all that life can throw at you unexpectedly was revolutionary. As the company has grown, we’ve integrated our understanding of all that we’re balancing as humans into our core values. We want to make life suck less for our listeners but also for our staff. We lead with empathy. We have a generous PTO and paternal leave policy along with bereavement leave. We want people to know that they can work really hard here and still have thriving lives outside of the workplace.

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?

Steph: So much of this is systemic. As we tackle in our show No One Is Coming to Save Us about the childcare crisis, we have failed working parents and caregivers in this country. Childcare is infrastructure, and until we implement institutional support for working parents and caregivers, including paid parental leave and universal early childcare, we will not be able to overcome these obstacles.

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?

Steph: If more women became founders, I have to believe that more companies would be motivated to implement policies that support working families. The culture of work could change fundamentally.

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

Jess: Gosh, that you can do it alone. I am so lucky I have a business partner. And we take care of our working relationships first, before anything else, because it’s the most important part of our success.

Steph: It’s so true. The most important part of our founder titles is the “co” part. We are co-founders and that has made all the difference in the world. I think there’s this myth of the individual founder as visionary. That’s not been the case with us. Our superpowers come from collaboration. First with each other, and as we’ve grown, with our teams. There’s no possible way I could have done any of this on my own. Many hands make light work!

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?

Jess: I think I could have founded 100 companies that didn’t thrive. This idea, this moment, this business partner, it worked because all the pieces fit, we worked hard and deliberately to build it. If you are sitting on an idea and it’s the right moment, go for it. Ask for support, ask for advice, and bring people along who share your vision to help along the way. Not everyone is cut out to found something, but anyone can help build the right thing for them.

Steph: Jess and I had an idea that was keeping us awake at night and that was a podcast about the opioid crisis. We wanted to know what we could have done differently to save our brothers and we were highly motivated to do it. It was personal and critical. When we started pitching the concept, we kept getting the feedback that it was too “niche.” But we’d done the research. We knew that millions of people were struggling with issues related to addiction for themselves or their loved ones. So we took a chance on ourselves and went out on our own. Once the podcast became a success, we thought, “Wait a minute, we’re on to something here. What if we created content and community around all the things that are keeping people up at night — not just drugs.” And it worked. We’ve carved out real space in a saturated market because we did the work and knew we had what people needed. If you feel that strongly about your thing, go for it!

Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Steph: I’ll do three… 1) Have a support system. Again, with two small children at home who have lots of needs, I need to lean on my network of helping hands constantly. From partners to parents to childcare providers. Wouldn’t be able to do this work without tons of help and support. 2) Move your body every day. I am adamant about this one. Every morning, I do 15 minutes on the yoga mat. Even when I’m traveling. Even when I’m slammed. Even when I don’t feel like it. It’s been deeply grounding to be able to establish this as a daily practice in the midst of the start-up chaos! Highly recommend it. 3) Therapy! We talk a lot about mental health at Lemonada. For me, therapy has been critical. This work is hard and kicks up tons of emotional dirt at all times. Put your own oxygen mask on first: therapy.

Jess: I’ll finish this out. 4) Health first. If you feel like crap, everything will feel like crap. You have to take care of yourself physically and mentally before anything else. 5) Have 5–10 people from different sectors with different, diverse backgrounds who you can call for help at any time.

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

Steph: We’re in the midst of this right now! The more ears we have on Lemonada, the more lives we hope to save. As a mission-driven company, making the world a better place is literally our biggest priority.

Jess: We have, we’re still midstream.

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?

Steph: We just launched a weekly iteration of our limited run series, No One Is Coming to Save Us, which is all about the childcare crisis. We need federally funded childcare in this country and we are ready to tackle it head on. So this is a big one. We’re also doing Season 3 of Last Day on gun violence in America. We need to treat this like what it is: a public health crisis and we need to find solutions.

Jess: What she said.

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?

Jess: Mackenzie Scott.

Steph: Oprah Winfrey! She’s the absolute Queen of the interview. Listens attentively, pushes gently, and remains compassionate always. I’ve been watching her my entire life. I used a quote of hers as my senior quote in my high school yearbook. Let’s have breakfast, Oprah!

How can our readers further follow you online?

Jess: @lemonadamedia across platforms! But you can find me @jjcordovak on twitter.

Steph: I’m @wittelstephanie on Twitter and IG.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Female Founders: Jessica Cordova Kramer & Stephanie Wittels Wachs of Lemonada Media On The Five… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Ashley Sumner Of Quilt On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

… Be honest with yourself about what you love doing and what you hate doing. At the beginning, you’ll probably have to do it all, but when you can, hire people to do the things you hate doing.

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

Ashley Sumner is the CEO & Founder of Quilt, an uplifting social app to find community through fun, genuine conversations. Her startup career began 12 years ago in NYC as a community builder, connecting people through experiences. She now lives in Los Angeles, like every other New Yorker.

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?

My passion has led me to a career in connecting people through experiences. I’ve been a performer, a matchmaker, and a community builder at NeueHouse and Wanderlust. All of this paved the way for me to launch my company, Quilt. Quilt is an uplifting social app that welcomes people to jump into conversations in a fun and creative way, and find their community.

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?

At the end of last year, I got sick. As a result, my capacity to work and my usual working hours decreased. While I was still the hopeful, curious person I naturally am, I also experienced a tidal wave of fearful emotions that were distracting. My first instinct was to keep my illness to myself; not tell investors, advisors, or my team. I realized this was something I didn’t want to perpetuate in my company, so instead, I opened up and allowed the people closest to me to step in and support.

The takeaways? Not only did I get to rewire my understanding of what support could look like, but my company thrived in a way it wasn’t before. I was able to focus on the most important aspects of my business and lean on my team to do the things they are already talented at.

Letting go of control is a difficult thing for us to do. For me, it’s been a mechanism I developed to survive and I want so much more than survival 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?

It’s less of a story and more of a growth journey to get to where I am today. As a community builder, I assumed I’d be great at hiring my team at Quilt. Early on, I didn’t get some things right like being specific in who I needed to hire in order to achieve company goals. Some of that was from not knowing enough about a certain role like engineering or meeting people who I wanted to be the right fit and moving too quickly.

The lesson I learned is to hire slowly: ask advisors for support to interview candidates, call more references, and explicitly state what success looks like when someone joins my team. Going the extra length and moving slower can feel risky, but now have an amazing team so it’s all been worth it.

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

As a society, most adults don’t have support in life’s most stressful moments whether at work, in love, in health, with our identity. As a child, I went through a lot alone. I spent my teens and 20s searching for ways to feel better — yoga, meditation, journaling, all of it. It wasn’t until I found myself in community, having supportive conversations and having fun with others, that I started to actually feel better.

When we start to feel good, we show up differently for ourselves, others, and our planet. I created Quilt so that people can be in constant community and feel better, together.

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

1. Take calls instead of zoom meetings if you can. It’s often easier to let ideas flow while you walk and talk. If you can’t, make time to walk — even if it’s only around the block.
2. Set an intention each morning and check in with yourself throughout the day.
3. Pull a card — tarot, oracle, inspirational quotes, whatever you like as a prompt to get creative, or have a good laugh. I was given this deck called Spiritual AF and they are so fun to read.
4. Listen to your body. If you feel something is off, listen and dig deeper.
5. Hop on Quilt and listen in to a conversation! I find my days feel more fulfilling when I quilt than when I don’t.

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’d like to start a movement around the statement crying is cool. I’m someone who proudly cries a lot. I feel like we’ve been told that crying is weak and only happens when we’re sad, but that’s not true. I’ve laughed so hard I started crying, I’ve cried happy tears. Openly shared tears bond us and I think that’s kinda cool.

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

1. Take time daily to be in nature or get creative. It helps you and also helps your company. You need this in order to think and feel, exponentially.
2. Get comfortable having direct conversations. You can be compassionate, while still being direct.
3. Be honest with yourself about what you love doing and what you hate doing. At the beginning, you’ll probably have to do it all, but when you can, hire people to do the things you hate doing.
4. Perfection is not real, execution is.
5. If you’re not sleeping well, make that your top priority. It has a trickle-down effect on everything you do in your day.

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’ve always been an advocate for mental health and am passionate about increasing access to support and resources for all people. There’s a stigma around mental health that I’m starting to see lessen as more people become aware of their own mental health. At large, the world is disconnected and lonely. If we heal humanity, we heal the planet.

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

You can follow @wearequlit on Instagram or TikTok.

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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