Burton Kelso of Integral On How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Use Your Profile to Tell Your Story. People do business with people they know like and trust which means you need to create a LinkedIn profile that helps people get to know who you are. You might be tempted to put a lot of information showing off your achievements and awards, but you should avoid doing that. Focus on sharing your personal and professional journey when filling out your profile. Make sure you have a professional headshot for your main photo and create a banner for your profile that let’s people know what you do and how you can help them.

As part of our series of interviews about “How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Burton Kelso.

Burton Kelso is the owner and Chief Tech Expert at Integral, an on-site and remote computer and laptop repair service company for consumers and businesses. He is also a national keynote and technology speaker, a YouTube personality, and a TV Tech Expert regularly appearing on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, News Nation Now, The Black News Channel,Talk.TV and Newsmax offering viewers easy tips on computers, technology, Internet lifestyle, and gadgets. As computers and their related gadgets become more and more part of our everyday lives, he’s here to help you get the most out of your devices. His vision is to remove the frustrations and complexity of computers and technology and open people up to a world of new ideas, experiences, and opportunities. He loves technology, he’s read all of the manuals, and he’s serious about making technology fun. safe, and easy to use for everyone!

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

I’ve already been a fan of computers and technology since I was a tween. My mother was the one who introduced me to computers as she somehow saw it was the way of the future. Sure I loved playing video games, but I loved how computers and technology offered you a way to accomplish everyday tasks such as creating documents, maintaining spreadsheets, working on your accounting and communicating with people across the globe. Plus, I always love helping people. Technology always has a way of making people feel as if they aren’t part of the cool kids. As someone who always felt like an outcast, I wanted to make people feel included and there’s where my love of helping people with technology came alive.

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

One of the most interesting stories I can share in being the the computer break/fix managed services business is working on the computers and internet service for Johnathan Badeen, co-founder and former Chief Strategy Office at Tinder father. Johnathan called our offices when he was in visiting home because his father was having issues with spotty wifi. He was one of the down to earth people I’ve met and it was interesting to see he was willing to seek help for issues over his head. He obviously has knowledge about technology, but not when it came to troubleshooting hardware issues.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. 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?

Years ago when working on a computer, I failed to put my anti-static strap on to prevent from zapping computer parts. The family I was working for had a very friendly dog that kept wanting attention. They put the dog away, but it kept getting out. At one point during the appointment, the dog brushed past me and zapped me which zapped the computer. I took responsibility for the issues and got the computer up and running. The lesson I learned that day was to always be prepared for any scenerio that can arise when you’re in the progress of working onsite at appointments and in life.

Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?

Facebook continues to be slightly ahead of Linkedin when it comes to increasing our business revenues. Facebook is the perferred and most popular social media out there. There are more people who use it day to day and for the most part it’s one of the most visited websites on the Internet. It’s the go to for people looking for a variety of things including business services.

Let’s talk about LinkedIn specifically, now. Can you share 5 ways to leverage LinkedIn to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Use Your Profile to Tell Your Story. People do business with people they know like and trust which means you need to create a LinkedIn profile that helps people get to know who you are. You might be tempted to put a lot of information showing off your achievements and awards, but you should avoid doing that. Focus on sharing your personal and professional journey when filling out your profile. Make sure you have a professional headshot for your main photo and create a banner for your profile that let’s people know what you do and how you can help them.
  2. Connect with Your Offline Connections on LinkedIn. We all have that stack of business cards we collect at business events that are laying there doing nothing. Most people would tell you that you need to enter them into your database or CRM. That’s true, but you need to also look for those people on LinkedIn and connect with them. Why? Well a quarter of the planet is on LinkedIn. When you connect with people on LinkedIn, you’re connected forever. When you rely only on business cards for your connections you only get half the picture. People are constantly changing jobs which means if you only rely on information gathered from a business card, you only have the information of where they were. What you want when building relationships with people is where they are. When someone makes a career change, they first thing they are going to do is update their LinkedIn profile. If you’re looking to play the long game and develop solid relationships, it’s going to take multiple touches or interactions before they even begin to look at you to work with.
  3. Your posts Need to focus on Entertaining, inspire and educating people. Nurturing relationships on LinkedIn doesn’t involve pushing your products and services in the faces of your connections. Just think of all those spam messages when you connect with someone on LinkedIn. You hate them and people will hate you if you start spamming them. Nurturing relationships on LinkedIn works best when you are focused on posts that will entertain, inspire, and educate you connections. People gravitate to LinkedIn for business, but they are on there for things that will take them away from the daily grind of life. Think about the accounts you follow. I know you love to see those motivational posts from your connections that inspire you to continue you on your business journey. There are those go to posts that you seek out that will make you laugh when you need a good chuckle. Finally, when you need a solution to a problem, there are those connections you will look to for help. People are more focused on looking for the solutions to the problems they face daily. Be the answer to they question they are looking help for when you create posts for LinkedIn
  4. It’s okay to share content from other social media platforms. Everyone on Linkedin is probably familiar with the old ‘LinkedIn isn’t Facebook’ that has circulated for a while. Social media can take up a lot of your time everyday. It’s not just the scrolling and staying in contact with your connections, it’s coming up with content to share on your feed everyday. Most people are usually killing it on other platforms like Facebook, Instagram and even TikTok. Why not save some time and share those same posts on Linkedin? Consistent content is important when you’re on LinkedIn and pulling from other social media platforms is okay.
  5. Remember, it’s a marathon! When you’re on LinkedIn, you need to learn how to play the long game. Understand you’re not going to get everyone to like you or listen to you when you connect with them on LinkedIn. It take many posts and interactions to start to gain traction. LinkedIn works best when you plan ahead as far as what type of posts you will make every day. When posting always remember to find content that people overall are looking for. Focus on posting on things that are trending such as holidays, local, nation and international events. It may take a while to get into the habit of remembering to post which is where tools like Hootsuite can help as far as scheduling posts weeks or months in advance. If you get bored with your posts, remember to change up what you’re posting … and yes that means try to use video in your posts. If you need inspiration to post, always remember McDonalds and Walmart consistently advertise and share content despite being billion-dollar corporations.

Because of the position that you are in, 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. 🙂

About 10 ten years ago a movement called the Cash Mob swept the country with a goal of helping small businesses out. The goal was to gather a crowd a likeminded, friendly people to go with cash in hand to help a small business. Think of it as a surprise party for small businesses. It would be nice to take it a step further and make a single day celebration for a small mom and pop business.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Would like to have a private meeting with Gary Vaynerchuk. Why? He’s the king of branding and empowerment. Who wouldn’t want to be around someone who is constantly being a go-giver and a inspiration to all.

Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!

Burton Kelso of Integral On How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Jennifer Meyer of DispatchHealth On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your…

Female Disruptors: Jennifer Meyer of DispatchHealth On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“The only thing you have to gain in opposing new ideas is that you may be right,” meaning why to be a naysayer, you are only serving to poison a creative process that could turn out a solution for one of the world’s most pressing problems.

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

Jennifer is a transformative executive with a long history of driving industry shifts that elevate healthcare and translate into better, more affordable medical attention for the masses. As chief development officer at DispatchHealth, Jennifer supports the organization’s mission to transform the industry by building a comprehensive system of care in the home. In her role, she drives meaningful partnerships with many of our nation’s leading health plans to implement solutions that give members options for convenient, quality healthcare at home.

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?

Thanks for having me. Right out of college, I began consulting work across various industries. Consulting was a good fit — strategy has always drawn me — I am one of those people who thrive on searching for new and better ways of doing things. While I loved the variety, I quickly became hungry to focus my attention somewhere I could make significant, prominent, and impactful changes — the type of change that would better people’s lives. But what would that be? Like many young adults, the realization that healthcare in America is expensive became apparent. In my circle of friends, I began to see the struggles that mounting medical bills produce. And my emerging stress and anxiety over needing to secure and maintain quality health insurance spoke to me — having good health insurance is a significant driver for many Americans. My aha moment soon followed — healthcare offered that “Big Opportunity” to drive strategy in an area where people were struggling and in an industry that touches everyone. Finding innovative ways to deliver high-quality healthcare at lower cost would become my mission, and with that, set the stage for my life’s work.

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

I have a dollar figure that will likely shock readers — $4 trillion. That’s how much we spend on healthcare in America, and it’s unsustainable! Roughly $1.3 trillion of that is spent on emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and post-acute stays — think “facility-based” care. However, advancements in technology now make it possible to move a sizable portion of that care, probably more than $433 billion worth, out of traditional brick and mortar settings and into the home, where we can care for qualified patients at a fraction of the cost, and often produce better outcomes.

DispatchHealth, the organization I work with, has built a scalable system of care in the home that did not exist in America before our inception — we’re creating the world’s first distributed healthcare system. Out of necessity, we have worked hard to develop a reimbursement mechanism for the entirety of our services that aligns patient, payer, and provider.

To answer your question specifically, as the chief development officer, I’ve led disruption in the healthcare industry by building high-value partnerships with risk-bearing entities, including large provider groups and health plans, like Aetna, United Healthcare, and more. Without the ability to rely on a health insurance policy for payment, our unique model of care wouldn’t be accessible to the masses; more than 100 million lives across the country today can thankfully take advantage of advanced medical care at home. Most recently, I brought to fruition the country’s first hospital-level care-at-home alternative, backed by a national payer, Humana. And our program remains the only community-based model to offer consumers advanced medical attention at home. By developing this innovative reimbursement structure, a large population of high medical needs patients now have access to hospital-quality care in the comfort and safety of home. It brings me immense joy and personal fulfillment to have touched 500,000 Medicare Advantage lives, giving them access to our novel programs — it feels impactful, with just enough disruption.

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

Early in my career, I felt the need to spell out every last detail of the things I was involved with, so much so that for a meeting I was coordinating, I told the two CEOs in attendance where to sit — I got some funny looks. But, I’ve learned that you don’t always have to be so prescriptive, that as long as you have the core pieces, a little balance, nuance, and fluidity is OK.

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?

My first job post-MBA was with the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The firm works across all industries, with corporations, governments, and other organizations. I worked as an associate principal of healthcare services and systems practice — we were responsible for addressing some of the healthcare industry’s most challenging problems. One of my most influential mentors was one of the healthcare growth leaders at McKinsey, who gave me and others the freedom to think big! The other thing this mentor instilled in me was to take a global approach to problem-solving — meaning look outside your field of work to find best practices elsewhere that you may be able to adapt.

And in healthcare, adaptability is key especially over the last couple of years. Fun story to share related to this — at the start of the pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) was in short supply. A member of the supply chain team at a partner health system produced an ingenious solution for making disposable isolation gowns, and it was an application used in the publishing industry. He purchased rolls of quality plastic, created a pattern that he cut pieces from, and then used a thermal binding machine to secure everything — thermal binding is the process used to secure pages of a book to adhesive binding strips. DispatchHealth helped in the creative process, and thousands of gowns were made, which offered medical teams the necessary protection at the height of the pandemic!

Regarding problem-solving, fighting the existing reality only leads to frustration. The impact of this influence on me and my career has been significant — supporting the process of running towards big ideas, with the permission to think about and try untested, new strategies, is the only way to make significant, impactful contributions. I appreciate it can feel scary and risky, but permission to take that risk, even if you fail, is essential and something I’m grateful to have instilled in me.

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?

The simple answer is disruption for disruption-sake only causes chaos. Take the example of Coca-Cola; in the early 80s, the company unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the soft drink industry with a new, sweeter version of its original recipe. The public freaked out, PepsiCo took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal declaring it had won the cola wars and Coca-Cola retired their failed take on a classic.

Positive disruption occurs when you’re solving a big problem or roadblock. Take my industry, healthcare; the United States spends an unsustainable $4 trillion on medical care. The founders of DispatchHealth saw the opportunity to move advanced levels of healthcare into the home where providers can care for complex patients at a lower cost and, in the process, solve other issues like traditionally low patient satisfaction, provider fatigue, hospital capacity issues, and more. Need is the caveat to positive disruption.

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

  1. “The only thing you have to gain in opposing new ideas is that you may be right,” meaning why to be a naysayer, you are only serving to poison a creative process that could turn out a solution for one of the world’s most pressing problems.
  2. “There’s little to no benefit sitting in status quo.” My mentors pushed this concept of never being comfortable riding the wave and instead jumping off to look for something bigger or better.
  3. To get buy-in on complex ideas and big projects, “Always think about how stakeholders are impacted and try to solve their concerns from the start.” And similarly, it is critical to break down complex projects and simplify the value before asking for adoption. “People must get your idea quickly and understand how it will impact them, ahead of buying in — make that process simple.”

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

Understanding the realities of social determinants of health is easy. There is no arguing that where one lives, the conditions of their environment, availability of quality food, transportation, and more directly impact their overall health. Where there is a disconnect is that solving these shortcomings benefits healthcare’s entire ecosystem. For example, a patient who requires oxygen, if they live through periods with no electricity, which means no oxygen, repeat visits to the hospital for related illnesses aren’t surprising. But considering this, solving the lack of electricity not only improves the patient’s health, but by reducing hospitalizations, we positively impact the financial bottom line of that patient’s insurance provider. Of course, this is a simplistic example of a complex issue. Still, it gives you a feel for how and why the healthcare industry benefits from getting involved in social determinants of health work.

Where I’m shaking things up next is in this space. By visiting our patients in their environment, DispatchHealth is uniquely qualified to identify these social determinants of health. And what I’m doing is creating pathways to share these details with the appropriate people and organizations to develop solutions. The missing link has traditionally been the ability of the caregiver, someone who isn’t in healthcare, to connect these dots in a meaningful way and we have a first-of-its-kind solution. I’m excited to lead this essential work for DispatchHealth and ultimately patients across the country.

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

I wouldn’t say women disruptors face different or more significant challenges than our male counterparts. I would say that some of the qualities it takes to be the voice behind disruption are traditionally more characteristic of men. Leading change takes thick skin and the confidence to bring new, maybe unpopular, ideas to the table. Back to the influence of my mentor — in the workforce, if we foster creative thinking and supportive environments, big things are possible.

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

I listen to many things, but the podcast “How I Built This” with Guy Raz is a staple. Guy dives into the stories behind some of the world’s most influential companies and explores the back stories of the innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists behind the movements they built — the segments are always fascinating and feed my need to hear about grandiose ideas and out of the box concepts that worked!

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. 🙂

Honestly, I don’t feel like I can answer this one without sounding a bit self-serving. I passionately believe the movement that will bring the most good to the most significant number of people is supporting the revolutionary movement for more, higher acuity healthcare in the home. As I mentioned, Americans spend $4 trillion on our healthcare system today, and $1.3 trillion is on “facility-based” care. We believe at least one-third of those patients could be cared for in their own homes, where it’s easier to identify and address social determinants of health. By doing this, we cut the cost of care significantly while improving outcomes and reducing the need for overall utilization.

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

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Richard Buckminster Fuller

How can our readers follow you online?

linkedin.com/in/jenniferannmeyer

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

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

Anna Peterson Macsalka of Zenimal On How To Develop Mindfulness During Stressful Or Uncertain Times

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Recognize that you don’t have to know exactly where you are going and how you are going to get there to feel at peace. Try to get clarity on one goal you have, then construct one single step towards that goal. After that, things might start falling into place. Don’t let the enormity of the goal paralyze you. Breathe into what you can do in this very moment and let that be enough.

As a part of my series about “How To Develop Mindfulness And Serenity During Stressful Or Uncertain Times”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anna Peterson Macsalka.

Anna is a mom entrepreneur who wanted to help people lead healthier, more joyful lives through mindfulness and meditation. After suffering from severe anxiety as a child and finding solace in a mindfulness practice at an early age, Anna wanted to give this gift not only to her own children but to all beings everywhere in a way that doesn’t require a stress-inducing screen. Unable to find any tools that met this criteria, Anna created the Zenimal.

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?

When I was six years old, I started having night terrors. I would fall asleep but after about 20 minutes, I’d wake up in an inconsolable panic and cold sweat. My dad would sit in my room and talk to me until I finally fell back to sleep, which sometimes would take hours. This worked for a while, but as I got older, slumber parties and overnight field trips were impossible for me and resulted in me being made fun of by other kids. Eventually, it amplified into everyday anxiety as soon as the sun would set. This was the point that my parents turned to a pediatric psychologist for a solution. She taught me how to control my breath, relax my body, and visualize my happiest place whenever I felt uncomfortable. Meditation was still considered a bit “crunchy” back then, but that’s ultimately what she empowered me to do. I no longer needed my dad to get me through the night. Finally, I had the power and it changed my life forever. I eventually realized it was my calling to find a way to empower other children with this gift after I had my first kid. I thought there must be a way for a kid to press a single button for relief on something that doesn’t require a screen and that they can have in their control. Thus, Zenimal was born. I began recording meditations that I felt most kids could invest their time in and take them to their happy place. It brings me so much joy knowing that my job is to bring peace, ease, and happiness into people’s lives.

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

In May of 2018, my perfectly healthy dad was unexpectedly hospitalized. I felt helpless watching him suffer. Here was my superhero that spent years and endless nights helping me in my worst of times and I couldn’t help him for a single moment. While sitting with him in the ICU, my stepmom mentioned that he really liked the meditations I had started recording for Zenimal, so she suggested I play them on my phone for him. I pressed play and immediately the energy in the room seemed to soften and his breathing seemed to ease. It was so simple, yet so moving. It was at that moment that I realized that Zenimal is not just for kids, but for everyone. My dad passed away the next day. He was a beautiful human that helped hundreds of people in his lifetime. It’s now my mission to use this company to multiply his hundreds of people into millions.

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

The means of work culture has drastically changed and continues to change with remote work becoming so common. My advice for other leaders would be to support and promote your employees as they are key to your success. Encourage them to take time off to allow a mental break and reset. This time off is ultimately beneficial to the company’s performance and success. Another tip I would give is to be flexible and understanding, when things may not fall into place as expected you need to make adjustments and pivot with the tide.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I have two favorite books that have had a significant impact on me. The first book is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read this book every year because it reminds me of my ability to fulfill my life’s purpose and that challenges that arise are simply hurdles, not barriers. The second book is The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy. This book is a beautiful reminder of the power of friendship and loving who you are at your core because you are always enough just as you are.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. From your experience or research, how would you define and describe the state of being mindful?

The state of being mindful derives from being present in the moment and being aware of your body, surroundings, thoughts, and emotions. Find a quiet area, close your eyes, and bring your attention to controlling your breath. By focusing on your breathing, and nothing else, your attention will drift away and then back again without prejudice, providing your body and mind with the reset it needs. This mindful and meditative practice is able to promote a state of calm and it’s something that can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of age or experience.

This might be intuitive to you, but it will be instructive to spell this out. Can you share with our readers a few of the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of becoming mindful?

Beyond finding a sense of calm in everyday life, being mindful has several other tangible benefits including physical, emotional, and social improvements in our lives. One benefit of being mindful is improvement in sleep. Sleep is vitally important for the body and mind, and yet so many people struggle with it. According to a study done in 2015, participants put in a mindfulness program had significant improvements in sleep quality with a secondary outcome that showed decreases in “sleep-related daytime impairment” such as “depression, anxiety, stress, and fatigue”. Another benefit of being mindful is increased attention span. Today we are more stimulated than ever, and this has ultimately led to difficulties with focus. Mindfulness acts like a windshield wiper to provide a clearer view on life. It allows people to feel grounded and able to process the overwhelming world around them. It ultimately allows for brief but effective resets to improve focus and decrease mental frustration. Practicing mindfulness has also been linked to building a greater capacity for kindness as it builds self-appreciation and develops a healthy relationship with one’s own emotions. With this comes the ability to emphasize on a deeper level and to help others cope with suffering or pain. One last benefit of mindfulness is an improved sense of well-being and satisfaction with life. A study in the Netherlands by Esther I. de Bruin showed that children and adolescents who underwent a mindfulness program showed improvements in “happiness, self-regulation, and quality of life.” It’s the ability to change the brain’s neural pathways in a direction that enriches the human experience. All in all, there have been countless amounts of studies conducted to prove the benefits of mindfulness and its effects on our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. The past 5 years have been filled with upheaval and political uncertainty. Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to develop mindfulness during such uncertain times? Can you please share a story or example for each.

  1. Make it a daily priority. For me, this means getting up 30 minutes earlier than I normally would.
  2. Minimize expectations. Some days you’ll feel great about your mindfulness practice and other days will feel like a flop. The important thing is to just be aware of it and continue to make it a habit.
  3. Realize that everyone else is also walking around with an entire universe living in them. Sometimes we feel like the only ones struggling or feeling out of sorts. Know that when you graze past someone while grabbing something off the shelf at the grocery store that they, too, have some level of trauma, anxieties, or sense of unworthiness. This can increase your compassion which can ease the feeling of being alone in the world and give you a feeling of purpose and understanding.
  4. Recognize that you don’t have to know exactly where you are going and how you are going to get there to feel at peace. Try to get clarity on one goal you have, then construct one single step towards that goal. After that, things might start falling into place. Don’t let the enormity of the goal paralyze you. Breathe into what you can do in this very moment and let that be enough.
  5. Pat yourself on the back when you recognize when you aren’t grounded in the present moment. Yay! You’re building your awareness which is a key foundation to becoming a more mindful person.

From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?

  1. Never force a conversation, but rather offer this person your support. Reassure them you are open and willing to talk whenever they are ready. If they don’t feel comfortable being vulnerable with you, offer them help to find someone they are willing to talk to that will help them.
  2. Provide validation by reassuring the person that it is ok to be feeling anxious and you are there for them. When and if they are ready to talk, ask them how you can provide support during these challenging moments.
  3. Actively listen. Sometimes all someone needs is someone else who is willing to just listen to them talk or express what is causing them to be anxious.
  4. Express concern once you start noticing a difference in behavior or actions in those around you. You can express concern by approaching the person in a positive and uplifting way by asking them to share with you why something may have changed. Reassure them you are just checking in with them and that you are there for them if they ever need help.
  5. Encourage them to change their perspective by asking them these three questions: what is the worst that could happen?, what is the best that could happen?, and what is the most realistic thing to happen?. By asking these questions, you can reassure the person that the worst possible outcome they may be worried about will most likely not occur. Rather, have them focus on a positive or more realistic outcome.

What are the best resources you would suggest for someone to learn how to be more mindful and serene in their everyday life?

A few resources for people to learn how to be more mindful and serene in their everyday life are the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation, Eckhart Tolle, and Mindful.org. Also, I encourage you to start by first limiting expectations on what is required to be a “mindful” person. A mindfulness practice can look different for everyone. Some people will have a formal daily two-hour meditation ritual and others will simply be fully present while washing the dishes or brushing their teeth. Find what works for you and stick to it for two to three weeks. See if you can notice any changes in your experience as a human. Is your ability to focus better? Are you more empathetic? Do you feel more at peace? At that point, you can evaluate if it’s making a difference or if you need to make adjustments.

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

My favorite “Life Lesson Quote” was told to me by my dad. It is, “Surround yourself with people who you want good things for and who want good things for you.” Living by this has never once failed me. It allows you to build this beautiful cocoon around you so you can grow into your most fulfilling self.

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. 🙂

If I could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, it would be to have a Zenimal in every school, hospital, and in the hands of those who are struggling. Whether it be a child who is struggling with big emotions in the classroom, a patient who is about to undergo an invasive procedure, or an individual who is struggling with sleep, anxiety, or just finding a sense of calm, being able to have a Zenimal to ease any of these tensions would make this world a better place. It is my mission to give the gift of mindfulness to every child and adult in need.

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

We can be found on IG/Facebook/Twitter/TikTok/Pinterest/LinkedIn @thezenimal.

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

Anna Peterson Macsalka of Zenimal On How To Develop Mindfulness During Stressful Or Uncertain Times was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Karen Lynn Robinson of Heal Thrive Dream on The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will…

Women In Wellness: Karen Lynn Robinson of Heal Thrive Dream on The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Prioritize your health by scheduling your workouts, meals, and medical appointments in your calendar FIRST before work and client appointments. Your clients want you to be at your best.

As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Lynn Robinson.

Karen Robinson is a licensed clinical social worker in the State of Virginia with 24 years of experience. Her expertise includes recovery from trauma, post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety. Karen founded “Heal Thrive Dream, LLC” with her daughters, to create more impact for trauma survivors globally. Karen provides coaching and counseling services as well as runs a full-service digital agency, and ecommerce stores with inspirational products. To learn more about Karen, her company, and her services, please go to healthrivedream.com

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 family tells a story about my kidneys failing before I was one year old, and my grandmother had a priest complete the last rites ritual. There is no known record of this, and the priest is deceased. I was also told a doctor from another hospital came to get me and saved my life. When I asked more questions, I think my family transferred me which makes more sense right? Imagine doctors going to hospitals to transfer babies! Even in the 70s, I can’t imagine this happening. Getting accurate information about my youth has not been the easiest as my family has trauma, poverty, domestic violence, and child abuse. As with most misfortunes in life, I was able to overcome a great deal (I’m still healing and working on wellness) and have become a social worker as well as a Trauma Recovery Expert.

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?

To be effective in my work, I need to be fully present with clients as they share the most painful pieces of their lives. I need to listen to dark stories, validate their experiences, and provide seeds of hope they will overcome and can work on holistic healing while becoming better versions of themselves. I pride myself for being very good at my work.

I have found the most interesting stories in my career being the times crises have broken out in our country or in our world. My responses have been all over the place! The good news is I can see my growth and I’m able to tolerate crisis responses more effectively. On 911, the school I worked for in the Metro Capital area went on lockdown, overnight helicopters were actively buzzing overhead, and I couldn’t calm my anxiety. My flight was cancelled to attend a friend’s wedding for the following weekend. I had leave from work and knew I could not sit in my condo. Thus, I jumped in my car and drove to the wedding of a dear friend. I beat myself up for not rushing to the Pentagon to be of service. I didn’t have the inner strength then. What is interesting is I became a federal social worker a few years later. I ended up working with survivors from the Pentagon and with our troops before and after their deployments to Iraq as well as Afghanistan. The work has not been easy, but I’m proud I took a weakness/limitation and turned it into service.

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?

One of the early mistakes I made in my first years as a social worker was pushing trauma survivors to get through their stories too fast. One client had a panic attack when telling me she had been buried lengthwise underground. The story is intense, and I want to protect readers by not sharing too much here as it can be quite triggering. My client got the message to not report her ongoing sexual abuse. Unfortunately, the client had never told anyone this story, and I was the first to hear. She was 53 years old. She reported to me after disclosing she couldn’t continue therapy. My mistake was not going slow. If I could turn back the clock, I would have encouraged her to take all the time she needs before telling me. I would have double down on her coping skills, support system, and making sure her health was stable (she had a heart condition and worried about therapy making it worse). I now know to start with emotion regulation, physiological monitoring, and embodiment work for deep trauma wounds. I still think of her to this day and hope God provided her with other healers on her path.

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?

My approach in therapy or as a trauma recovery coach is to teach, train, and guide my clients to take better care of themselves. I provided one-to-one therapy sessions and small groups utilizing many different therapy modalities over the years. Now, I want to truly make the work I do accessible to women anywhere in the world. I have launched a virtual, global membership for survivors of childhood abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, toxic work environments, or any other traumas.

Trauma can impact every single area of a survivor’s life. Survivors are often not initially concerned about their wellness; they are on autopilot trying to get through each day trying to understand why everything hurts in their body and why they feel anxious or on high alert. They often wonder why their relationships aren’t thriving and why everything seems to be overwhelming whether it is work, raising children, or both.

My program, Healing from Trauma Together, offers a community forum for survivors to connect, wherever they live in the world. They are encouraged to help each other, take bite size action steps in their healing, learn new skills, and be held accountable in their progress with coaching calls. Wellness in every aspect of their lives is the primary focus.

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.

I may approach this question differently than most. My recommendations are based on when people are feeling their worst. When they are grieving a loss, experiencing fierce emotional or physical pain, feeling despair due to a break-up, divorce, or rejection. These tweaks are also written with the survivor in mind. If we can focus on these five areas on our hardest days, they will likely be easier to accomplish on our lighter days.

  1. Water — If you don’t feel like you can eat, at least get your water in. Think of yourself as a withering plant that can’t spring back to life without hydration. If drinking water is even difficult, think about how to make it more enticing. Maybe a slice of lemon, lime, mint leaves, or a piece of fruit.
  2. Sleep — without sleep, everything can seem irritating. Don’t go too long without sleep. By the third night it is time to call your doctor for a temporary sleep aid. Before then, try sleep hygiene techniques by keeping your room cool and dark. Try aromatherapy and guided meditation. Shut down electronics a couple of hours before bed. Explore having a sleep study completed if insomnia is chronic as you may have sleep apnea.
  3. Nutrition — it is common to struggle to eat anything, let alone anything healthy during or after a crisis. Consider making the decision making simple when under duress. Some of us emotionally eat and again may not reach for food filled with vitamins and nutrients. Your appetite may wax and wane, this is common when we feel overwhelmed. Focus on healthy choices if you can tolerate food. When you can’t, try protein shakes or meal substitutes like Ensure for example. Not eating at all will throw your glucose levels off which will create even more havoc on your mood and lowers energy.
  4. Movement — it isn’t necessary to do hard core workouts when you are feeling emotionally and physically depleted. Just move your body. Go for small walks. Being outside and getting Vitamin D will do you good. As your strength builds up, you can walk a little further or at a brisk pace. Another idea is yoga stretches. Yoga Nidra or restorative yoga poses will help you release both physical and emotional tension. It will also help you to feel more centered and more connected spiritually.
  5. Relaxation skills — There are many ways to build relaxation skills in your life. The four main skills are deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, and meditation. Having several skills to pick from can provide variety as when skill doesn’t seem to be working for you, you can try another. The best source to learn more about these techniques is YouTube. You can search until you find a trainer whose style appeals to you.

These lifestyle tweaks are helpful for those struggling right now or not. These can be considered basic skills that can be improved upon as we build a more committed action plan to invest first in our wellbeing.

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 big dream would be to institute one large global wellness center to implement health care for all citizens, global awareness and prevention of trauma, ongoing research to end world hunger, disease, mental health issues, trafficking and any major problems impacting our collective global citizenship. Our country and our world are deeply divided. It is unfortunate as our collective brains working together would solve the biggest problems more quickly. It would mean more women stepping up to the table. It would mean letting go of pride and greed. It would mean investing in products and services that give back instead of lining the pockets of the rich. My part of this dream is to continue to build platforms and safe places for survivors to gather for comfort, community, education, training, healing, and inspiration. What is your part?

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

  1. Prioritize your health by scheduling your workouts, meals, and medical appointments in your calendar FIRST before work and client appointments. Your clients want you to be at your best.
  2. True work and life balance doesn’t exist. Doing the best, you can by being fully present when at one place or the other is about all you can do.
  3. Prep for your workday consistently. Clothes out including your workout clothes, meals for the day prepped beforehand, everything is ready to go. The less time to think and worry about these things during the workday, the more energy you can save and use on the things that matter.
  4. Don’t sit too much. I wish I knew back then that sitting would become the new smoking in terms of what sitting so much does to our health.
  5. Embodiment work — During my early trauma recovery training, embodiment work wasn’t discussed or as prolific as it is today. Emphasis of most treatment was on mental and emotional health. I wish I knew back then that trauma literally makes people sick with chronic pain, compromised immune symptoms, and inflammation throughout the body. Once I witnessed these problems in survivors, I started to research and learned this connection was also discovered during the ACE (adverse childhood events). Our mind is powerful and tries to help us by not remembering traumatic events. Our bodies forget nothing. Our cells, tendons, muscles, bones, and our soul never forget.

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

While all these causes are of great importance, the issue closest to my heart is mental health. After working in the mental health field for 24 years, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Has this been an easy career? Absolutely not. Suicides, overdoses, sexual assaults, war, gun violence, divorce, are not easy for therapists and their clients to muddle through. The last few years with the isolation, political divide, and other struggles, our collective mental health has plummeted. Despite all of this, I can’t imagine working in any other field. I love connecting with clients and working with them towards a more hopeful future.

What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?

Karenrobinson360.com is where you can find my blogs, boutiques, and resources.

Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.

Women In Wellness: Karen Lynn Robinson of Heal Thrive Dream on The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Rapha Araujo On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

I believe “consistency is key” is an extremely powerful phrase. Consistency is the key to success when it comes to anything. Whether that is building the body of your dreams or building a business or having a healthy relationship, consistency is key! It’s the little things that you do day in and day out that give you the bigger picture results that everybody is looking for.

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

Fafa Araujo also known as @Fafafitness11 on social media has become an Internet sensation known for her crazy physique and life story. Fafa was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and is now currently living in Miami, FL pursuing her career as a Fitness celebrity!

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?

Of course! And thank you very much for having me on the interview, I appreciate it!

So I was born and raised in Brazil and fitness has always played a key role in my life. My mother was in great shape and went to the gym all the time. When I was a little child I would go there and watch her and could not wait until it was my day to start!

I moved to the United States 10 years ago and was a part owner of a gym where I would train clients and help with whatever was needed. Right when it started is also the exact time that Nick (my boyfriend) and I started dating! Nick has always been very into social media and encouraged me to start an Instagram page and told me he would help me with everything because he saw a lot of potential in me and all of the fitness knowledge that I provided got him! So we started a page and within a week the page gained thousands and thousands of followers! So we both decided this was what we were going to pursue and put all of our time and energy into. Fast forward two years and here I am today doing what I love and motivating people through my social media platforms on Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube and Twitter.

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

I think the aspect that I don’t compete is very disruptive in the fitness industry. One of the first things people ask me when they meet me is “do you compete?” And “what do you take?” Well the answer is I don’t compete and I have no aspirations to compete. I just love being in shape and motivating other people to get in the gym and achieve the best version of themselves. And as far as taking enhancements I don’t use any steroids or performance-enhancing drugs. I use a natural muscle building product that I created, it is called Brazilian Shredz. The thing people don’t understand is that performance enhancing drugs will not make you a new person. To achieve a top tier level physique requires hard work and dedication over a long period of time. I have been consistent with exercising and eating properly for over 20 years!

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

Oh this is definitely a funny question! I’ve made more mistakes in my life than you can imagine. And that’s normal, we were all brought onto this world to make mistakes and find solutions to make the world a better place. When it comes to the gym almost anything you can think of has happened to me. I have dropped weights, I have fallen to the ground while working out, I have almost passed out, but what I learned from it is that to reach my dreams and goals I had to just keep pushing forward and stay focused on what is important.

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 believe we all need help when it comes to reaching our goals! Even as little as somebody believing in you or telling you you can do it goes a long way. When it comes to business my mentor for sure is my boyfriend Nick! He has been the most supportive person throughout this journey helping me with everything that I do! None of this would be possible without him. If it wasn’t for him motivating me to start a page I would not be here today.

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?

Sure! So what I believe is that publicity is publicity. But with that being said you don’t want to spread negativity to the world. Energy is one of the most powerful and influential things out there and I do believe that you are what you attract! If you are a very negative person always looking at the glass half empty then that is probably what your life is going to reflect. If you are a positive and optimistic person that has a good head on their shoulders and will put in the work that is necessary to achieve their goals, I believe you can do anything you set your mind to! But remember at the end of the day we are all humans, we all make mistakes. So I do believe in second chances, nobody is perfect especially when it comes to social media there are tons of eyes on you at once and eventually you will make a mistake and I believe if you prove to yourself and other people that you deserve a second chance and you are a good impact to society then you will be gifted that second chance! At the end of the day love wins and nobody wants to be around negativity. Look at the glass half full instead of half empty. and be the best version of yourself every day and nothing will be able to stop you!

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

I believe “consistency is key” is an extremely powerful phrase. Consistency is the key to success when it comes to anything. Whether that is building the body of your dreams or building a business or having a healthy relationship, consistency is key! It’s the little things that you do day in and day out that give you the bigger picture results that everybody is looking for. A perfect example is me building my physique! Most people would say it can’t be done unless you take performance-enhancing drugs or that it’s genetics. But the reality is it is possible to not use performance-enhancing drugs and instead use a little tool called consistency. I’ve been dedicated to this lifestyle for 20 years. And the problem with social media nowadays is everybody wants instant gratification. They want to be famous overnight, they want to have an amazing physique overnight, they want to make a bunch of money, but the reality is the world does not work like that. Consistency is the key to life

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

Oh no I’m not done at all… We are actually just getting started! The focus was to move out of Chicago and into Miami Florida to take everything to the next level! The focus of this year and next year is to continue creating high-quality content for my supporters and helping and motivating as many people as I possibly can! As far as what’s coming next. I can’t fully talk about that right now because it is in the beginning stages, but just know that it is going to be big! and if you are interested in hearing more about it check out my social media platforms on Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube and Twitter because I will be announcing it there sometime next year!

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

I think it really depends on what industry you are in. I can’t speak for others but something I have noticed in the fitness industry is “fit shaming.” I don’t believe in shaming anyone whether they are fit or not. Everybody was brought on this earth to be happy and find happiness. I have gotten tons of support over the last two years but I have also gotten a lot of hate simply for the way I look. People don’t even know me and will comment mean things on my pictures and videos simply because of the physique that I have built. But thankfully the support has been positive for the most part and that holds so much more value than the negative comments! So just remember if you got into the social media industry you are going to have love and hate from other people but at the end of the day you have to just stay focused and stay consistent and do what makes you happy.

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

To be honest not really. I am actually not a huge content consumer. I am an old soul. I was raised by my mother and my grandmother in Brazil and I love the way they raised me I always try to be a great person and help others and live a very simple life believe it or not. Just recently I have started consuming more Content but it’s not much fitness related stuff, it is more motivational stuff and business advice as I get more into my career and build my brand

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

I would say getting out of your comfort zone and trying things that you want to try! And what I mean by that is I have tons and tons of people that tell me they want to start creating content and they want to be a social media influencer and they look up to me And they wish they could do what I do but the reality is anyone could do what I do! Like I’ve said throughout this entire interview it comes down to consistency, if you want something bad enough you will make it happen! So try things, if you want to be a fitness influencer start posting content, start providing value to the world and spreading positive energy and do this time and time again and I’m sure you will see traction. Same thing comes to building a physique, so many people say they wish they look like me, etc. the reality is you can look like me if not a lot better! just focus on what makes you happy and what your goals are and go after them! There are a lot of distractions in today’s society that drag people down but find things that motivate you and keep you pushing forward and that will ultimately bring you happiness and success throughout your life.

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

“Together we are stronger” for those of you that know me and have been a part of this journey since the start know that this is the quote that I live by! I say it all the time and I mean it from the bottom of my heart! Together we are stronger, I would not be here if it wasn’t for the support I get day in and day out. Count on me because together we are stronger!

How can our readers follow you online?

You can find me on all of the social media platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube and Twitter @Fafafitness11

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

Female Disruptors: Rapha Araujo 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.

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Kinnari Patel of Rocket Pharmaceuticals On The 5 Leadership…

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Kinnari Patel of Rocket Pharmaceuticals On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

Trust your instincts and your experience, especially when you’ve done your homework. Being confident in decisions that are based on science, data and feedback from experts.

As a part of our series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Kinnari Patel.

Kinnari Patel is President & Chief Operating Officer for Rocket Pharmaceuticals, a premier biotech company seeking cures for rare, life threatening diseases through gene therapy. As one of the early leaders of Rocket, Kinnari has led clinical execution globally and regulatory affairs, among other responsibilities.

Kinnari is an industry veteran with over 15 years of experience in rare disease Research & Development and is a leading advocate for the rare disease community. Prior to Rocket, Kinnari has held positions in some of the world’s leading healthcare and pharma companies including Novartis, AstraZeneca, and Bristol-Myers Squibb among others, where her experience spanned areas as wide ranging as Regulatory Science, Pharmacovigilance, Policy and Quality Compliance.

Among her extensive education, Kinnari has dual degrees of a B.S. in Biology and a Doctorate of Pharmacy from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, PA; a two-year Postdoctoral fellowship in Regulatory Affairs; and an Executive MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

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

During Pharmacy school, I spent time in the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development. This was an incredibly moving experience, as I heard firsthand from parents about the devastating and life-threatening impact that rare diseases can have on patients and their loved ones. I recall one parent stating that clinical research for her son’s disease was showing early promise. However, the company opted not to pursue further clinical development because pursuing a treatment for the disease wasn’t financially viable.

The family was understandably upset, and I couldn’t stop myself from questioning why a therapy with promising early data would not be developed further because it might not make the company enough money to overcome the R&D costs. So that really became the reason I pursued a path in the healthcare industry with a passion for bringing potential therapies to the rare disease community. I also recognized that it wasn’t just about getting drugs approved, it was about how you do it efficiently. And at the same time, how do you shorten the typical drug development timeline that can take 15–20 years from concept to approvals? I wanted to make drug development less burdensome, nimbler and navigate a more efficient process overall. At Rocket, we have incorporated our learnings to enable products to go from first-in-human in late 2018 to now having topline data read out (just 4 years later!). We hope to apply this efficient drug development model for other devastating diseases. My motivation is saving one patient’s life and then expanding to the point where we have the ability to do this for hundreds and then thousands. But even making things work for a single patient is a humbling experience.

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

One night, my husband and I were home in New York City watching the news while having pizza and a glass of wine. Alicia Keys’ song ‘Empire State of Mind’ had just come out and the newscaster mentioned that the lights on the Empire State Building had been coordinated along with the music for her new video. And it made me wonder, “Why does the Empire State Building do this?” So, I googled it and discovered they do it for football games, high-profile events, music videos, etc. And I thought, “Why aren’t they doing this for nonprofit organizations? Could this be done for rare diseases?” That off-hours idea led to the start of a campaign called, “Light Up For Rare” that is active today, and championed by Rocket and collaborating patient advocacy organizations for rare diseases. Now, we have over 100 monuments around the world participating in the movement on Rare Disease Day, held annually on the last day in February.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started out in corporate America, I had five years of postgraduate education under my belt. But as a 5-foot tall, Indian-Asian woman who looked even younger than my age, people would not take me seriously. One colleague suggested that if people perceived me to be older, it might help. At the time, my nieces — who I love dearly — were 1 and 3 years old. I brought in a picture of them and put it on my desk. People automatically assumed I was older because they thought I had two kids. Another piece of advice I got was to wear glasses and smile less. So I did all of those things at my first job because I wanted to be impactful. I felt like I had to be “older” to be “wiser.” That used to be the norm in pharma. Aside from feeling like I was not being myself, I kept getting asked about my kids and found myself wearing my glasses at all the wrong times! Since then, I’ve come to learn that your content should speak for itself. When you’re surrounded by the right people, they’ll see the value you bring to the table. And if you’re at a place where you have to misrepresent who you are, that’s not the right job for you. This is one of the reasons I am so proud of what we have built at Rocket — we consciously promote an environment where every individual can thrive while just being themselves.

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

In addition to our innovative approach to seek gene therapy cures for rare and devastating diseases, one of the things that makes Rocket so special is our diversity. The range of our employees’ ages, gender, ethnicities and educational backgrounds makes it a melting pot where people can be their best selves, and diversity of thought leads to great results. This diversity also extends to how we are organized. We’re not a deeply hierarchical company. Instead of having an org chart, we have an accountability chart. As a result, it becomes about the people and responsibilities, and less about position and title. And finally, our family environment and culture is such that we celebrate people’s whole lives — we don’t just have birthday parties, we also do baby showers! We also have our share of brilliant science leaders who are also musicians. It’s not unusual for them to take a seat at the piano or pick up another instrument. This combination of science and diversity of background and culture really has made Rocket unique at every level, and helps us in our mission to seek gene therapy cures.

Tell us about the most exciting new projects you’re currently working on? How will they help people?

Never in my life did I think there could be a “one and done” cure for a genetic form of heart disease. Like many people, I have family members with severe heart diseases. One of the most exciting programs at Rocket is our work on a gene therapy for Danon Disease — a rare, pediatric heart condition. Boys with Danon Disease typically pass away around the very young age of 19. The only treatment is a heart transplant that comes with a number of complications and limited long-term survival.

Based on our early clinical data, Danon patients in our investigational gene therapy program seem to be living normal lives. I never fathomed we’d be at a place where we can actually treat the disease at its core cause to hopefully save people’s lives. If we can do this for Danon disease, we can potentially do it for other monogenic cardiac diseases.

Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

Oh my goodness, no! First, we still don’t have enough young girls and women in STEM — we need to close the gender gap so everyone is equally encouraged to be scientists, engineers, coders and so forth. I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged me, but we need more of that. Second, what I didn’t understand or fully appreciate early in my career — and what I’m now working to change — is the widespread issue of salary inequality among women in STEM. I learned in a former company I worked at that females were being paid 30–40% less than males who held the same titles, including myself. At Rocket, employee compensation is equal without regard to gender or ethnicity. And every six months, we take the time to complete a comprehensive compensation review of employees. No employee, regardless of their gender, should be undercompensated just because they’ve been at the company longer and the market value has gone up since they joined. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, but I believe it’s something every company should do.

Another big aspect of this inequality for women is representation. When I became a C-level executive before I turned 40, there were not that many women in the C-suite at publicly traded companies. I remember going to banker and investment meetings and seeing that there were very few women I could look up to and ask for their advice. I found that to be incredibly disappointing, because I’d thought we’d made so much progress, but at the boardroom level, we still hadn’t. Fortunately things are changing for the positive. The biggest change I think biotech companies are slowly making is getting female scientists from the labs into managerial roles. This is going to fundamentally alter the status quo for women in STEM as more leadership roles are filled by women who appreciate this experience. I think these are active things companies and we as female leaders in STEM have to do in order to give people equal opportunities and change the status quo.

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?

Early in my career, unless I knew something 100% and really did my homework, I was afraid to go with my gut instinct and express my opinion. And I’ve seen this happen with lots of other women in the sciences. One of the biggest challenges faced by women is the generations old perception that STEM is not cut out for women. As a result, women are often forced to work harder to prove themselves versus their counterparts, and thus often are forced to be more cautious and guarded. We need to create an environment that acknowledges that capabilities in STEM have nothing to do with gender, so women can have the same confidence in expressing their opinion and are empowered to share their instincts– which is essential even in STEM.

These challenges often surface in more subtle ways. I remember answering questions in an external meeting earlier in my career and the other party dismissing my responses. Yet when my male colleague said the same exact thing, the other party was supportive and took detailed notes. This disparity in treatment is something we have to keep fighting. At Rocket, the leadership works hard to find the best people for the job, period. I am proud that we have female leaders across the organization. As female leaders in STEM we need to encourage this in everything we do.

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

As a woman, people have often said to me early in my career, “Don’t talk about the science or the data and don’t geek out, because it will make it seem like you can’t see the big picture.” The idea that a woman can’t know the science and think strategically is a myth that needs to be broken. As a scientist in drug development, talking about the science helps me form the basis for the strategic decisions I need to be making. Much of this goes back to the earlier point about the perception that one gender is more predisposed to STEM than the other. This myth, above all, needs to be broken. I was fortunate my parents encouraged me into STEM — we need parents, educators and society as a whole to do this, at the very earliest age so girls and boys are viewed as equally capable. To be clear, to bust these myths, you need everyone — ourselves as females in STEM but also our male counterparts to not only recognize these biases, but to be part of the change as well. The more companies and leaders in STEM that do that, the quicker these myths will be in the past, and the more progress we’ll make as a corporate and scientific community.

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. Trust your instincts and your experience, especially when you’ve done your homework. Being confident in decisions that are based on science, data and feedback from experts.

2. It’s OK to say “I don’t know:” “I don’t know” is actually a sign of truth, trust, and strength. Step up, take responsibility, and give credit where it is deserved.

3. Ask for help. It’s impossible for one person to know (how to do) everything and be able to do it. There may be a better, faster and easier way to do things. Leaders need to ask for help as role models that lead by example and promote collaborative culture, therefore better productivity.

4. Self-care matters. It’s not selfish for you to take time out for your own health and wellness, whether that means going to the gym, taking a lunch break or even to get coaching. Your well-being leads to your team’s well-being. In this busy world, you should actually schedule in time for yourself: 5–10 min of reflection, a lunch break, a short walk, exercise, no-tech time in the evening, etc. Doing this could help you become even more impactful.

5. “You are not selling ice cream.” While doing so would be a sweet position, being a biotech executive means challenging the status quo and making important decisions that may not always be popular. Keep the end goal in mind — helping patients.

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

First, set a great example for your team by trusting yourself and not being shy to own the work you do. Be a good role model by having confidence and showing other women how to advocate for themselves. Most importantly, create a culture that welcomes diversity of thought process, clear career ladder pathways and celebration of authentic leadership. If your team can see paths for success for women being themselves, they will thrive.

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

Remember that every single person is unique. You need to tailor how you work with each team member based on their personality, cultural differences and experience. Everything should be personalized. And as a leader of a team, you want to hire people better than you, people that one day you want to report to. Then, you can actually learn from them and grow 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?

Of course, my biggest early supporters were my parents who really pushed and supported my passion for science from age 6 or 7. But for the past twenty plus years, it’s been my husband. Not only has he moved around the country for my life’s work, he’s made more personal sacrifices that I can imagine. To have a partner who understands and appreciates your work passions — as frustrating as that can be at times — and to see your strengths and gaps, and give you unconditional support when you need it has been really essential to my being where I am today. I’ve been very lucky in that way.

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

From the beginning, my work has always been about helping others, and part of that today is paying it forward. If we can share our mistakes, learning, as well as our best practices, we can really make the world a bit better. I recently got on a call with someone who was starting his own lab to salvage drug products that might otherwise go under due to stresses on the healthcare industry. This is critical work, because if no one pursues these particular drugs, patients won’t have access to treatments that could save their lives. I shared my knowledge and talked about mistakes I’ve potentially made — or think I’ve made — so he doesn’t make the same ones. To me, knowledge is only powerful if you share it. Personally, I continually strive to be a role model in the biotech field by sharing what I can, following the example of every single person who has helped me along the way. As companies, the more we can share about our successes and learning in STEM, the better we will leave the world.

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?

I don’t know if I would say I have had “enormous” influence in the world, but with the influence I am fortunate to have provided… in a word, it would be equality. I want all kids to have equal access to education and basic healthcare. That’s really critical as millions of kids are prevented from reaching their potential by not having access to these basics. I would also advocate for equality in opportunities based on race, culture or gender preference.

In our own field of rare disease, for patients with rare diseases, it’s very unfortunate that in this day and age, only 5% of the approximately 7,000 identified rare diseases have an FDA-approved treatment option. This is something we are working day and night to change.

By addressing equality on all these fronts, I feel this will do the greatest good for the most people and create a new world for so many people. I’m striving to make a difference in humanity one day at a time.

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

“Nothing is permanent.” Try not to stress too much about any one particular thing, because no matter how bad a situation is, it will change. When I find myself in a bad place, like we all do from time to time, I try to refocus on the good in my life and appreciate what I have. I always remember that life is full of ups and downs so I remind myself to never give up. I’ve found this to be a very effective rule in my life.

Is there a person in the world with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?

My idol is Mother Teresa so if I had a chance to privately share a meal with anyone, it would be with her. Of course, we have lost her in this life, but I’ve long admired what she did in giving up the life and luxuries she had to selflessly help humanity, by enabling kids to have better education and by bringing food and healthcare to underserved populations. She did that all her life and it was never about her. It was just about being her best self, which meant helping other people be their best selves.

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

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Kinnari Patel of Rocket Pharmaceuticals 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.

Shelby Milhoan On How To Develop Mindfulness During Stressful Or Uncertain Times

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Step 1 is finding what works for you. If you know you can only do 1 minute of mindfulness of your breath, do it. If you don’t know what works for you, try different types of mindfulness activities, such as mindfulness of sipping water, watching the wind blow the curtain, a visualization exercise found on the internet, or washing the dishes! That can look like focusing on the warmth of the water, the smell of the soap, or the movement of your hands. You can also practice with guided exercises found on apps such as HeadSpace or on YouTube.

As a part of my series about “How To Develop Mindfulness And Serenity During Stressful Or Uncertain Times”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shelby Milhoan, LCPC.

Shelby Milhoan is a licensed clinical professional counselor providing psychotherapy in Towson, Maryland. She specializes in helping burnt out individuals stop prioritizing others’ needs above their own and become badasses in all areas of their lives. She also loves working with individuals who don’t fit into “traditional” roles within society. To find out more about her practice go to www.growithshelby.com

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 grew up in the upper Ohio River Valley in a town of about 600 people. Growing up in a small, rural area had an impact on how I saw the world, though I knew from a young age that I thought and felt a bit differently than others. Around age 12 my parents finally divorced, and my father thought it would be a good idea for myself and my two younger siblings to see a therapist because he was worried about our behavior. I remember going into the first session, looking at the therapist, and saying “F*** you. I’m not talking to you” and she didn’t budge. She wasn’t shaken by this young teen yelling profanities in her office, and I was kind of taken aback. I was so used to seeing adults yelling and being horrible to each other, that I guess I expected her to react with anger. I didn’t talk during the first session, but I kept going back. I quickly realized that she was the very first person who I could trust with my emotional experiences and my thoughts. I knew within the first year of seeing her that I wanted to be that person for others, no matter how hard I had to work to be that person. I worked hard during high school to do everything I needed to do to get into college. That included extracurriculars on top of working at a restaurant. Even though I wanted to study psychology, it wasn’t easy for me to do that. In college, I first studied music and teaching. I was a vocalist, and I was told I needed to study something that would lead to a definite job in which I could make money, which was teaching. I gained some independence and clarity in college and allowed myself, with help from my therapist, to push for something I wanted. I stopped listening to those voices who thought they knew what was best for me and thought I was incapable. I switched tracks to psychology, and I loved it. I don’t think there was a psych class I didn’t like. My professors were great and so encouraging, and I really began to believe that I could go to graduate school. Though, like with my undergraduate degree, others didn’t think it was a good idea for me to attend graduate school. Can you believe that? People in your life telling you, “Do you have to go to graduate school? Isn’t that a waste money? Why can’t you just find a job and get married here in the valley?” “That’s unrealistic.” Once again, I decided to push back against those voices and what others wanted for me and set out to build my own life. I moved to Maryland, attended grad school while working, ended relationships with some and set boundaries with others who doubted me and caused me unnecessary pain, and graduated with a 3.9 GPA from Loyola University Maryland. I am one of only a few people in my family with a degree, let alone an advanced degree.

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

I think one of the most interesting stories that has happened to me since starting my career was the story of how I had to get a second job after I graduated from graduate school. I realized that even though I had this advanced degree and could get a job in my field that I could barely make ends meet on that salary alone, and I didn’t have any help. So, in addition to working at my full-time salary job, I worked part time as a cocktail waitress at a club. I was lucky to be in my 20’s at the time and had the energy to do it all. Looking back, I have no idea how I would work somedays until 3 am and then get up at 6 to work in the field. It was madness. I do believe that through those experiences I became a better therapist, especially to individuals who have been counted out or are burnt out from having to grind in our society.

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

DO NOT assume that just because you or some others within your company can do certain tasks, projects, or work with certain people that others in your company can do the same. As a clinician in the mental health field working for a company or clinic, you will often come across jobs that require you meet a certain amount of “billable hours” per week. Therapists are in a unique role in which we must hold others’ emotions and traumas and provide a safe environment for insight and growth. Some clinicians can see 35 clients per week, and some can see 10 clients per week before their physical and mental health begin to decline. Add on top of this the paperwork, meetings, and the constant trainings we must attend, we can burn out quickly. To create a fantastic work culture, you must learn your employees’ strengths and find a way to utilize them within your company. Stop attempting to hold everyone to a certain standard that is unattainable for some without allowing space to recover (i.e., mental health days, maternity and paternity leave, paid time off and insurance). I guess in other words, treat your employees like human beings and not like robots that produce for your company.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha Linehan. Her memoir takes you through her life, from her struggle with her attempts at suicide at a young age to the vow she made to herself that she would help individuals in a similar situation to hers. She speaks about the struggles she faced into adulthood while creating the modality of therapy that is used to treat individuals who were at one time deemed “untreatable.” Overall, this memoir gives a lot of hope to those who are struggling with thoughts of death and constant invalidation from their environments.

This might be intuitive to you, but it will be instructive to spell this out. Can you share with our readers a few of the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of becoming mindful?

The state of being mindful is simply a state of focused attention on the now. Mindfulness is paying attention to the moment in a particular way, whether that be paying attention to a sensation that is welling up inside of you as you are speaking about a loved one or focusing your attention on a cat as it scurries by while you are on a walk. Being mindful and utilizing mindfulness isn’t about sitting on a cushion for 20 minutes listening to an audio on YouTube (though that is a form of mindfulness and can be helpful!) Mindfulness is about bringing awareness to what is happening in the now.

We can be mindful of the now as it’s happening inside of us or outside of us. Being mindful of what is happening inside of us may look like observing and focusing on your breath as it comes through your nose, travels down your throat into your chest and stomach, and as it travels back through your nose on an out breath. That is mindfulness of the physical sensations of the breath. We can be mindful of our emotion and thoughts as well, and that can be a bit trickier, especially for those who have a history of trauma or mental illness. For example, I may be walking through Target and notice my ex-boyfriend walking in the aisle adjacent to me. I can stop an observe that a feeling is coming up, label it as excitement or fear or dread or disgust, and that is technically mindfulness of our emotional state. Being mindful of our reality outside of us may look like me focusing on the sensation of my fingers hitting the keyboard as I am typing this. It may look like focusing on the smell of the coffee I just brewed or paying attention to and focusing on how my cat looks as she sleeps in my windowsill. These instances described may only last seconds to minutes, however, it is still considered being mindful of the present moment.

The physical, mental, and emotional benefits to becoming mindful are astounding, though the journey to becoming a mindful person and reaping those rewards can be difficult. To begin to see the benefits of mindfulness, you must practice daily. You can think of it as strengthening your ‘mindfulness muscle.’ Like with strength training or learning an instrument, practicing daily is the only way to reap the benefits. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to sit and meditate to the sound of the universe for an hour, but it does mean that you must set aside even just 3 minutes a day to focus on the smell of coffee or the feel of a blanket or the flame of a candle or your breath coming in and going out of your body. If you can do 1–3 minutes daily, that is still mindfulness. If your mind wanders during that time and you bring your mind back to focus on whatever you were focusing on, that is still mindfulness!

A consistent mindfulness practice has been shown to improve resting heart rate and blood pressure, decrease mood swings, increase focus, and even better relationships with others!

Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. The past 5 years have been filled with upheaval and political uncertainty. Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to develop mindfulness during such uncertain times? Can you please share a story or example for each.

Step 1 is finding what works for you. If you know you can only do 1 minute of mindfulness of your breath, do it. If you don’t know what works for you, try different types of mindfulness activities, such as mindfulness of sipping water, watching the wind blow the curtain, a visualization exercise found on the internet, or washing the dishes! That can look like focusing on the warmth of the water, the smell of the soap, or the movement of your hands. You can also practice with guided exercises found on apps such as HeadSpace or on YouTube.

Step 2 is setting up a time to practice mindfulness. Like scheduling time to hit the gym or practice learning a language, putting time in your schedule to practice mindfulness can be important. That can mean saying to yourself that you are going to practice mindfulness for 3 minutes while driving to work while focusing on the sole activity of driving without music or talking, or you are going to practice 5 minutes of mindfulness right before you go to sleep at night while lying in bed.

Step 3 is actually doing the mindfulness we say we are going to do! This can be the most difficult part. Setting a reminder in your phone or a sticky note on your desk to help remind you to practice is a great idea.

Step 4 is doing it again. And again. And again. Make it a goal for yourself to do mindfulness for 1 minute for 4 days. When you have met that goal, try 2 minutes of mindfulness for 4 more days, then 3 minutes of mindfulness for 7 days, and so on. If you want to actually gain the benefits from practicing mindfulness, you will have to practice daily. It’s like eating well for your health. You can’t just eat those greens for 4 days and say, “Well, I’m healthy now!”

Step 5 is getting back on the horse when you fall off. All of us fall into and then out of practicing mindfulness from time to time. Maybe you went on a vacation, or your schedule has been packed and adding that 5 minutes of mindfulness to your schedule went out the window. That is okay! It is easier to get back into mindfulness if you don’t judge yourself (or reframe that judgement) and jump back in. Maybe you will have to begin at practicing mindfulness for only 2 minutes a day. 1 minute is more than 0 minutes. Remember that mindfulness is really just paying attention to the moment in a particular way, so if you can do this daily, you are cultivating a mindfulness practice.

From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?

Step 1 is clarification. Perhaps a friend or family member may look anxious to you, though they are experiencing something different. Check-in with that person. Ask, “Hey, you seem anxious, is that right?” When we misread cues and go off our own assumptions, it can be invalidating to that person.

Step 2 is acknowledging and validating. If your assumption is correct, ask this person, “Is this something you want to speak about right now?” Sometimes we dive into trying to comfort the person or problem solve. They may need time and space to process themselves before receiving help and support and that is okay!

Step 3 is asking if they want someone to listen or someone to help problem solve. As stated above, we can go into problem-solving mode which can make a person even more overwhelmed. We are simply just asking what they need right now.

Step 4 is listening and validating. Active listening includes body language like eye contact, facing toward the person you are speaking with, not being involved in other things in the moment (phone, TV, reading), and nodding and having an open, neutral stance. Validation, specifically of the emotion, sounds something like this: “Wow, that sounds tough.” Or “This sounds like something that is painful and confusing.” Try not to turn what they are experiencing into a moment in which you speak about yourself (“Well when I was anxious, I felt terrible, and this is what I did, and I felt better).

Step 5 is helping with problem solving and skills (if wanted) as well as regulating your own emotion. Have you ever been in a situation in which a friend or spouse or child is so upset that it makes you upset too? This is what we are talking about managing. When you act on your own emotions that come up as a result of this person’s emotional distress, it does not help. Take a step back if needed, utilize breathing yourself, and remind yourself that you are safe where you are, and your focus is helping this person. That is mindfulness. If this person asks for problem solving or help, try breathing with the person (breath in for 3, breath out for 6), grab this person an ice pack from the freezer to put on their neck or face, or even hug (ask first). A 7 second hug can actually regulate the nervous system.

What are the best resources you would suggest for someone to learn how to be more mindful and serene in their everyday life?

Mindful.org has some great mindfulness exercises that individuals can enjoy. Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer are all good apps that you can download to listen to mindfulness audio or videos. You can also go to dialecticalbehavioralthearpy.com to learn the ins and outs of mindfulness through a DBT lens. In addition to your own work, you can look for mindfulness centers or mindfulness groups near you that can assist in your mindfulness journey. Some great mindfulness books include Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh.

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

“It is what it is” It can sound cliché to some, though everything that happens in a moment is everything that happens in a moment. We can look back on our life and place blame on others for why things turned out the way they did for us, and that is valid. I have been there, and I know at one point or another we all have. Though if we want to move forward and not get stuck in our past, replaying what has happened to us again and again, we must acknowledge that it is what it is; that it has happened in the past and now in the present we can make small changes in the moment to change our trajectory. It isn’t easy, especially for individuals with trauma and other mental illness, and it is possible.

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. 🙂

I would start a movement to make healthcare and housing affordable for everyone in the US. Healthcare, food, water, and shelter are all BASIC necessities for human life to survive and thrive. We constantly hear stories about how people are being charged hundreds of dollars for medical care even though they have insurance, or how it costs over 10 dollars for a pound of chicken, or how people can’t even drink the water out of their own facets because it is contaminated, and they have to buy bottles! We live in the “greatest country in the world” and we can’t even afford to house homeless children and veterans. I would start with healthcare, challenging the bureaucracy in the billon dollar pharma and healthcare industries, because that is my industry. I think it takes a village to challenge the standards, so I couldn’t do it alone. I do have hope for millennials and gen Z coming into office. We are sick and tired of seeing and being a part of the struggle, and you can only push millions of people so far.

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

You can follow me on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/growwithshelby and my website at www.growwithshelby.com Blogging and social media coming soon, so please stay tuned!

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

Shelby Milhoan On How To Develop Mindfulness During Stressful Or Uncertain Times was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Mallory Gott of G+A On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman…

Female Founders: Mallory Gott of G+A On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Take a dang vacation. In my first year of entrepreneurship, I had to physically write on my to-do list, “Do not work today.” I was such a nutter butter that my brain could only acquiesce to time off if it was a task. At the time, I told myself that unless I didn’t work on a given day, I failed that day. It was extreme for sure, but I needed (and still need) time to live all aspects of life, not just work. I’ve spent a lot of time relinquishing the martyr complex I thought was essential to success. Next up? Leaving my computer at home on an upcoming vacation in 2 months!

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mallory Gott, Founder of G+A | An Experiential Design Firm.

Mal Gott is the owner and creative director of Las Vegas-based G+A | An Experiential Design Firm, creators of incredible event and brand experiences for bar, restaurant, and boutique hospitality clients since 2019. Since her firm’s inception, Mal’s business has grown over 100% per year annually, and her team has drawn on decades of event, marketing, branding, and space design expertise to define and design dream experiences for clients such as the Hofbrauhäus Las Vegas and Velveteen Rabbit. After nearly two decades conceptualizing global event and brand experiences for some of the most discerning audiences in Western Europe, North America, and Asia, Mal began creating and rejuvenating brand experiences for her clients, resurrecting events deemed unsavable, and breathing new life into spaces, places, and concepts that had long been discarded as past their sell-by date. Mal’s most recent accomplishment is for her and her partner’s win in the Great Las Vegas Coffee Shop Giveaway organized on by Dapper Companies. Their concept, Winnie & Ethel’s Downtown Diner won the million-dollar grand prize and will open in early 2023.

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 grew up in suburban Chicago, the oldest of four and daughter of two public school educators. At the ripe age of 8, I asked my mom to buy me a beret and told her I knew I needed it to go to Paris. Fast forward 10 years when I took my first trip overseas to — you guessed it, Paris! Fast forward a few more and I was working first abroad and then in the US as part of event design teams creating and producing experiences around the globe for brands and their consumers. In 2019, I launched G+A | An Experiential Design Firm where we focus on design brand experiences for independent bar and restaurant, luxury boutique hotel, and mixed-use development clients all centered around how they want experiences to feel for their customers and themselves.

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

Well, there’s been a global pandemic, that was certainly an unexpected twist! But beyond that, the day that I pitched my first 6-figure project to an international restaurant brand head was particularly magical because I happened to be on vacation at a friend’s home overseas. I was talking to the head of this globally recognized brand while her 2-year-old was napping in the next room, and when I closed the deal via video call (this was pre-pandemic by the way), we celebrated with hamburgers and milkshakes. It was the most surreal experience, and I wouldn’t have changed a single moment of it!

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?

Not surprisingly, there are so many people to thank, but one that I always brag on is a dear friend of mine who did me the best service I never would have asked for when she lovingly told me the truth in ways that helped kick my butt into gear. As it turns out, I didn’t leap from full-time employment with a golden parachute tied to my back. I was unexpectedly let go from my job 10 days before Christmas. As in, I returned from Europe on a Monday evening flight, got up Tuesday and worked for 3 hours, logged into what I thought was my annual performance review conversation where I was anticipating a raise, and logged off 7 minutes later unemployed. As you might guess, the blues found me in pretty short order and after about a month I was talking with this friend bemoaning my perceived lack of prospects when she looked me square in the eyes and said, “Mal, you’re 35, single, unemployed, and have no mortgage, pets or family to provide for. There is no better time to launch your own business than right now.” I was stunned but not the least bit offended because I’d never considered those circumstances as an advantage. Once she helped to open my eyes, my first paying client showed up less than 30 days later and the business was officially born.

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?

Ourselves, at least that was the case for me. I believed I need investors, an in-depth business plan, extensive branding, marketing, and the like for a very long time, which simply wasn’t (and isn’t) true. A product is nothing more than a good or service that someone pays another someone for, and a company is the legal shell that houses that product. By that definition, anyone can sell a product and create a company in very little time at all. Instead, I incorrectly believed that a product had to be “the” product that everyone and their mother was clamoring after, and a company had to look like the stuff of business school textbooks to be effective. Neither of which is true. As soon as I examined what I knew how to do based solely on my individual experience, education, and interests (and that last part is key), and began offering to do those things for others, I had developed a rudimentary product. As soon as someone purchased my services and I opened an LLC online using free templates from reputable websites and friends who’d done the same before me, I founded a company. It’s as simple as that.

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?

Two of the best tactics I’ve used to date are both simple, cost nothing, and allow me to be the solution to the problem, overcoming my own fear of inadequacy. First, instead of selling to prospects, I began by calling friends or colleagues with a genuine interest in learning what they were doing and sharing what I was doing. Instead of asking whether they would be interested in my service, I asked whether they knew of anyone who might be, and then I followed up with those people and the people I originally called. I got to catch up with friends; there was no pressure on them or me to buy or close a sale; and it was an easy step I felt immediately comfortable with. Second, I focused on the easiest thing I could do to make any progress on days when there was no well of motivation to draw from. The only sure ways to fail are to give up or never start. Even miniscule progress on tough days was progress and that made (and still makes) a world of difference in staying the course.

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?

Because why shouldn’t they! There’s simply no reason why a woman shouldn’t found a business. Think you don’t have skills? Wrong! Think you don’t have time? Tell even one friend or close confidant what you’re endeavoring to do and ask for ideas about how to create more time. Watch what they come up with! Think you need money, a business degree, the next TikTok? No, no, and on everything that’s holy, definitely no! Start where you are. A free Gmail account, online templates for most basic business documents and your local library or SBA office can set you on your way. As for TikTok, I’m a believer that the world needs more of what women have to offer based on our perceptions and experience with the communities around us — not only more brain-zapping, dance-mania apps.

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

It’s lonely at the top. Sure, there are things others may not understand, but everyone is familiar with stress, uncertainty, and trepidation. Don’t fall into the trap of chronic uniqueness. Seek out peers, of course, but take advantage of the wisdom of good people who surround you right now. Their experiences can be every bit as helpful and valuable. Plus, they want to see you succeed which means they are invested in helping you in any way they are able to — often with no strings attached.

It’s a grind and you have to hustle if you want to make it work. Yes, founding and nurturing a business requires a level of discipline and persistence, but the idea that it also requires lashing yourself to a wheel of entrepreneurial death, working 16 hours a day 7 days awake, or subsisting on energy drinks and coffee are just that — myths. If you love working long hours, do it. If you genuinely enjoy getting wired on caffeine and burning the midnight oil, good for you. If you’re content working 30 hours a week (or even 5 if you’re still at a full-time job) making demonstrable progress while also having a life, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t or will not be successful as you grow your business.

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 think a better question is why we as a community venerate the entrepreneur and measure ourselves against the yardstick of “what’s your side hustle or your self-made story?” Anyone could become a professional clown or a librarian or any number of things. If they chose not to, we (society I mean) don’t assess whether they had what it took to go into that profession but chickened out, yet somehow with entrepreneurship we do. If I tried to found a company in an area I abhorred, I would fail for sure. Similarly, if I tried to become a librarian, clown or any number of other job roles, I would likely also fail. I have nothing against clowns or librarians, those interest just aren’t a part of the fabric that makes up my interests in life. If you have an interest in something and the idea of trying your hand at it as an owner or founder piques your curiosity, go for it. If not, don’t. Be open to either path or some blend of both because there’s nothing inherently better or worse about working for others or yourself — even the most well-known founders (in the conventional sense) answer to shareholders, a board of directors, employees or customers. At the end of the day, we all work for someone, right!?

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.)

  1. It can be fun. You don’t, and shouldn’t, have to struggle through every minute of every day to start and grow a successful business. Once I began to realize I could have fun at the earliest stages just by choosing to do so, things got a lot easier overall. Sometimes I still forget that, so thanks for the reminder!
  2. It’s going to change — a lot. I had one vision for my business when I began about four years ago. It’s evolved, and I imagine four years from now, it will look different than it does today, both in composition and focus. That’s alright, and it’s natural, so don’t beat yourself up when it happens!
  3. You don’t get ready until you’re done. Do the thing you’re confident you’re not ready for because of inexperience. You’ll be so prepared for the challenge after you succeed that you won’t remember why you were just sure you were going to fail.
  4. Get grocery delivery and a subscription to Instacart, and make friends with your dry cleaner and housekeeper. Stop telling yourself you can’t afford to give up tasks (literally or figuratively). Don’t overextend yourself, but it’s okay to pay $60/year to save yourself hours at the store or $100 a month, so your day off isn’t consumed with laundry or house cleaning (unless you love both). Rewrite the story about the value of investing in yourself, and don’t wait for a hundred commas in your bank account to do it.
  5. Take a dang vacation. In my first year of entrepreneurship, I had to physically write on my to-do list, “Do not work today.” I was such a nutter butter that my brain could only acquiesce to time off if it was a task. At the time, I told myself that unless I didn’t work on a given day, I failed that day. It was extreme for sure, but I needed (and still need) time to live all aspects of life, not just work. I’ve spent a lot of time relinquishing the martyr complex I thought was essential to success. Next up? Leaving my computer at home on an upcoming vacation in 2 months!

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

I employ some amazing people and I do my best to make their experience positive and uplifting whenever I can. I strive to do the same for the clients and vendors we work with too. Why not be the people others are excited to speak — who’s name on a calendar invitation is a joy not a drag? At G+A, we also have both Client and Team WOW budget line items and they have funds budgeted to them just like utilities or office supplies. If I’m not committed to wowing the people who have entrusted me to help their businesses grow or who share their time and talent with my business as team members, what does that say about my priorities? “Show me your checkbook,” as one friend of mine says, “and I’ll show you what you care about.”

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 read an article in either Architectural Digest or Vogue within the past year about a once-great, now defunct mid-century luxury hotel in central Africa that had become a de facto refuge for people in and around that community. It would be my great joy to take properties like those, restore and adaptively reuse them, and employ people in those communities to run the re-developed spaces. I love the idea of infusing beauty into once great places that have fallen on hard times, imbuing them with unique attribute specific to their locations around the world and working with the communities rather than displacing them to create a virtuous rather than vicious cycle of renewal.

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.

I would like to sit down over a nice cup of coffee and dessert (specific, yes, but I love sweets) with Elaine Wynn to discuss how to fund and launch the program above. Elaine, I’ve got a slew of good places here and in New York whenever you’re free!

This was really meaningful! Thank you so much for your time.

Female Founders: Mallory Gott of G+A On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Virginia Frischkorn of Partytrick On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your…

Female Disruptors: Virginia Frischkorn of Partytrick On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Take care of yourself first. As a woman and mother, I’ve struggled to constantly remind myself that if I am not taking care of myself (physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually), then I cannot take care of others. If I don’t take care of myself, I cannot lead and inspire others the way I would like to and cannot perform at the caliber I expect of myself.

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

Virginia Trafton Frischkorn is the founder and CEO of Partytrick, a tech platform disrupting the event industry. She is also the founder of luxury event production company Bluebird Productions, Something Blue, and the Aspen Picnic Company. Throughout her 14-year career in the event industry she has gained prestige among her peers as one of the top event planners in the country. She has been named best wedding planner by Vogue, Brides, & Over The Moon, and was also recognized as one of BizBash’s Must-Know Event Pros.

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 grew up in a family that loved to throw a fabulous party. Some of my earliest memories were hiding at the top of the stairs in the house I grew up in and watching the festivities pan out in front of me. Other times, I’d find myself hiding behind my mother’s skirts at the party itself while my little sister, the theatrical one, amused our guests. One might say that connecting others and curating memorable experiences is in my blood — it’s certainly my passion.

In college, I started my involvement with a larger variety of organizations and assisted planning gatherings of all types. Following a short stint as a ski bum/instructor in New Zealand and Aspen, I settled into a job at The Little Nell in Aspen (in 2008) as a catering and events manager. It was a crash course in luxury event sales and production during a tumultuous time with very high-profile clients. I learned more about events, human psychology, and large amounts of money spent at events during that time.

In 2010, I founded Bluebird Productions, my event planning, design, and production company. Over the last twelve years, I’ve planned countless weddings, corporate events, social events, brand activations, and more for some of the most influential and prominent people in America and their friends and clients. In the years that followed, I launched and ran two other event-related companies (Something Blue by Bluebird and Aspen Picnic Company) focusing on more “normal” weddings and luxury picnics. While it has been an honor and a privilege to have had this experience, I am currently being drawn down a new path that will allow me to impact a larger population.

Partytrick is my latest venture and has the power to bring a luxury service to the masses in an affordable and accessible way, while also remaining aspirational and well-curated. Giving the gift of empowering others to have memorable experiences and foster connections with others is beyond thrilling.

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

I recall a section of the book “Zero To One,” where the author describes an entrepreneur vs business person using the analogy of an explorer vs traveler. Both require resourcefulness, hustle, and gumption. However, when you go to explore, you set out for the unknown. To make change. To make impact. You’re charting uncharted territory. That is what I believe we’re doing with Partytrick and why I believe it to be disruptive. There is nothing like Partytrick currently on the market, and I see this style of planning becoming a major part of the event industry in the years to come.

The events industry, and specifically event planning, is one that relies heavily upon the human touch. Event planning services are discretionary and are often seen as a luxury service. We’re rewriting the script as we launch Partytrick. We are able to bring the skills I’ve perfected after years in the industry to the masses by leveraging technology (while not forgoing fabulous design). This has not been done before. While some businesses may solve a piece of the puzzle (beautiful tabletop rentals for instance), finding a way to use technology to bring curated, semi-customizable and customizable event planning services to the masses in a holistic fashion is a new concept.

In short, we are here to remove the limiting belief that you can’t host an amazing party. We’re providing peace of mind and empowering our users in a way that has never been done.

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

Well, isn’t this a challenging question?! When I first started my business with Bluebird Productions I was 24 and made mistake after mistake. While I struggle to see any of them as “funny” per se, I learned more through every mistake and hiccup than I did from our successes or moments of luck.

As I’ve leapt into the tech industry, I’ve struggled and made more mistakes than could have been imagined as I use my vocabulary and knowledge in hospitality and events vs tech. To me an “event” is a party or gathering, right? Well, my tech team doesn’t see it this way. Who knew a 5 letter word could cause so much confusion? My “product” is about the physical products we recommend, but, again, my counterparts don’t see it that way. Learning their language has resulted in more laughs than I could imagine.

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

My father was and is my mentor, personally and professionally. He taught me to be curious, to know that I am unstoppable and have no limit. He bred the belief in me that if I want something badly enough and can be resourceful enough that I am capable of anything I set my mind to. He encouraged me to dream bigger. Despite all those grandiose statements, he also poked holes in all of my lofty dreams to help me see my blind spots and emboldened me to learn from the mistakes he had made.

As a child, my relationship with my father was rather minimal. My mother and “other mother” figures raised me, my brother, and my sister. My mother inspired us to explore our passions and if she wasn’t well equipped to support us, she’d find the right coach/teacher/support for that particular pursuit. My father provided for our family and was relatively absent focusing on his own business endeavors. When my father “tapped’ in after a large professional setback, he took the opportunity to impart his wisdom to coach and guide us. The time and lessons learned guide me daily. He passed in the summer of 2020. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t call upon the lessons he taught me. So many of my professional endeavors and personal relationships are guided by his principles and values.

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

I love the saying, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it…I love it because I wholeheartedly disagree. There is almost always room for improvement and betterment of everything, if even just a shift in one’s mindset towards “whatever doesn’t need to be fixed”. Being dismissive or meddling for the sake of meddling isn’t productive or helpful…but, improving and enhancing something from the place and intention of curiosity and seeing what someone may not have seen is, in my mind, innovation in its truest sense.

Our efforts to disrupt the event and hosting industry by empowering all people to gather and celebrate life’s little moments can only be seen as positive. By providing tools to remove the limiting belief that “i just can’t throw a great gathering,” “I don’t know where to begin,” and to remove the various stressors related to hosting, we offer peace of mind and connection to the masses.

Years ago, the widespread culture of entertaining and art of hosting a gathering was disrupted as special events that are wildly unattainable by the masses became the norm. This disruption helped businesses in the special event industry. Ultimately though, the rise of these excessive and over-the-top gatherings sparked a competitiveness, lack of inclusivity, and caused many to stop gathering with others in casual setting because their events “weren’t good enough” or “ didn’t rival what they saw on social media.” And now, we have a population of people more disconnected than ever. While it’s “just a party,” the reality is that connection with others is a basic need of humans and we need to bring gatherings back.

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

  1. Dream Bigger. My dear friend Mark and I were talking about a business idea I had several years ago. He shared that I wasn’t dreaming big enough and helped me reset the bar I’d set for myself even higher. Dreaming and dreaming big are core to who I am now.
  2. Take care of yourself first. As a woman and mother, I’ve struggled to constantly remind myself that if I am not taking care of myself (physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually), then I cannot take care of others. If I don’t take care of myself, I cannot lead and inspire others the way I would like to and cannot perform at the caliber I expect of myself.
  3. Start every day with movement and gratitude. I start nearly every day with a gratitude practice and then get my body in motion (running, pilates, and yoga are my go-to’s). While I hated it when I was told that logging onto my computer first thing or checking my phone/emails from bed wasn’t a good way to start the day, I started performing better personally and professionally when I incorporated these habits into my daily routine. When I slip back into bad habits, I see how these words of advice truly are so impactful as my ability to show up how I want to degrades.

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

We’ll see 😉 As I mentioned, my father has been the key mentor in my life. As a female who spent her early career in a female-dominated industry — and let’s be honest, a kind of catty one at that — I didn’t have other mentors. I definitely didn’t have mentors in the event planning and production professions.

I want to figure out a way to support women in business, and particularly these highly creative fields, better, as that’s something I haven’t had. Although some “networks” exist, I have yet to find one that supports me in a way that fills me up. While I have no idea how this will take shape (yet), I have a sneaking suspicion that my next step will be to find a way to elevate how to better support women in creative businesses.

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

Have I mentioned the challenges of “single mom” status yet? Resourcefulness, creativity, and resilience are superpowers I’ve had to cultivate that have led me to disrupt and create. While I cannot say the same for all females, I’d be willing to bet that women disruptors vs male disruptors are juggling a lot more on their plate with regard to domestic responsibilities. Because of these demands, there is less personal time, less work time, and much less flexibility to prioritize a career above all else.

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

The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This book has impacted how I think about the significance and meaning of almost every interaction, personal and professional. The book explores why certain experiences can elevate and change our lives and how we can learn to create these moments.

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. 🙂

If I could inspire a movement that would bring a lot of good to others I would find a way to encourage people to enjoy the moment so much that they put away their phones and are lost in the beauty of that moment. Brene Brown’s definition of play (def: anything that makes us lose track of time and self-consciousness, creating the clearing where ideas are born) strikes this at its core and I would love to inspire play for the sake of connection and mental wellbeing of all.

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

While there are so many, gotta love a good motivational quote, this one comes to me every single day: Just Do It: the slogan or tagline of Nike. There is never a right time to do “it.” That “it” may be having a baby, starting a business, leaving a toxic relationship, taking the leap on a person or idea… But, if you wait and never get into motion, the desired result will never happen.

How can our readers follow you online?

www.virginiatrafton.com

www.instagram.com/virginiafrischkorn

www.linkedin.com/in/virginiatfrischkorn/

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

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

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Cannabis Industry, With Katie Enright of Lavinia

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Take responsibility for your own pleasure, your own life, your own passions and your own ideas. There are a million reasons why we can remain stagnant or remain safe and the narratives and conditioning around that is real. But ultimately, if you want something and you aren’t willing to give up when it gets hard, you can find a way there.

As a part of my series about strong women leaders in the cannabis industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Katie Enright.

Never in her wildest dreams did Katie expect to create a community like Lavinia.

Katie’s original plan in life was kind of the opposite — specifically, she believed her calling in life was to be a nun and prepared for a life of study, reflection, and celibacy…

Until, like one does, Katie met a “Francois” during study abroad… and then priorities changed.

In stepping away from nunhood and into a life where sexuality is expected, Katie felt behind the eight ball relative to her peers in sexual experience. As a result, she began to research methods and products that would help her feel empowered, pleasured, and promote access to better, more powerful orgasms. Unfortunately, she never found the exact product she was looking for…

So she made it herself.

Through her research, Katie found that cannabis can enhance orgasms and create a better sexual experience. When correctly applied, cannabis dilates blood vessels, which increases blood flow — this makes achieving an orgasm easier and more intense while making multiple orgasms more accessible. Katie started making it simply for herself, then for friends who would ask for it, then friends of friends, and then friends of friends of friends…

From this community came Lavinia.

Lavinia’s mission is to enhance peoples sex lives through cannabis and to normalize two historically taboo subjects (sex and cannabis). Lavinia wants to empower people to live life to the climax!

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the cannabis industry?

My path to the cannabis industry has been completely unexpected and organic. A few years ago, I was training for my second marathon. My first marathon had left me injured, beat up and I didn’t want to go through that again, so I experimented with different products to help my recovery. Cannabis balms were the most effective by a long shot. I came back from a two-hour run sore and exhausted one day, used a cannabis balm on my muscles and within a matter of minutes all of my pain was gone. I was blown away. This led me to start researching and experimenting with cannabis balms. I made my own balms in my kitchen and in my research I read that cannabis can be used to enhance sexual experiences, so I made myself a balm that I used as lube. It was amazing, but I was using coconut oil as my base and coconut oil gave me yeast infections. I went on a mission after that to find lubes that didn’t have a coconut oil base and I couldn’t find one anywhere, so I started making my own silicone-based lubes in my kitchen.

At the time, I was working as a bartender and started giving my homemade balms away to friends with no intention of starting a company — I was just excited to share something that I created that had such a profound impact on my own sex life. One day, someone I had never met walked into my bar and asked if I was the girl who made the cannabis lube, they wanted to buy some, and I realized that this wasn’t just a personal product, this was a business. My progression into the industry felt so natural. I went into the industry as a consumer, making products that I wanted to see on the market and I found that others wanted those products as well. My needs matched the needs of others and once I realized that, my mission and motivation for starting a company snapped into place.

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?

I’ve been surprised and amazed by the impact that this product has had on women. The amount of women who have told me that they were able to experience their first orgasm ever because of my products or that they finally feel empowered to talk about pleasure with their partner and take ownership over their own sexual experiences is incredible.

I created this company when I started meeting my own needs. Following the truth of my own needs connected me to other people’s needs as well. It’s a way for women to take control of their sexual pleasure and that came from first me taking control of my own sexual pleasure. I strongly believe that if you honor and follow your own needs and desires, you will not only liberate yourself but it will lead you to a place where you are able to liberate others as well. This company reinforces that truth every day.

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?

If you own your own business, you know that every day, you make a million mistakes. It’s not about not making mistakes, it’s about learning from those mistakes quickly and continuing on. Some of the best and most ridiculous examples of some early mistakes were around honing in on the recipes for the lubes. Because I started this project in my kitchen, I was my own guinea pig. I tried every variation of lube and tried every recipe on my body.

I put peppermint in one batch of lube. When you first apply it, and especially if someone blows on it, the warming and tingling effect of the peppermint feels otherworldly. But the second there’s penetration of any kind, it burns horribly. It was awful! Another recipe worked well but tasted really bad. I used it while having sex with my partner and although the sensations were great, we both stopped midway through sex to brush our teeth to get the taste out of our mouths. Luckily, we’re past that point and the bulk of the science is behind us but man, did I put my body through the ringer in order to come up with the recipes we have today.

Do you have a funny story about how someone you knew reacted when they first heard you were getting into the cannabis industry?

It’s been a surprise to everyone, myself included! I haven’t had a straightforward path. I grew up religious, studied theology and was actually intending on becoming a nun until I had a come-to-Jesus moment, so to speak, and discovered that I actually wanted to become a mother, an experience I obviously wouldn’t be able to have if I were to have gone down that path. But it was in my investigation of that path that I ended up meeting people and having experiences that changed my mind. Fast forward several years and I moved from the Midwest to Los Angeles to, of course, become an actress. I bartended on the side and that’s where I ended up meeting my future business partners. So along my path, some people have known Religious Katie, some people have known Actress Katie, and now I guess I’m Cannabis Lube Katie! Those who have been in my life for a long time have watched me follow my path to some pretty unexpected places. Not everyone from my religious upbringing even knows what I’m doing now and I’m okay with that. You never know where your path is going to take you and in retrospect, for most of us, it’s always a surprise where we end up.

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?

My business partners have been amazing. I partnered with people who were involved in startups long before I was so any time we come across a roadblock and I think it’s game over, they have the perspective to know that it’s no big deal and they have comfort navigating it.

Our Chief Science Officer in specific deserves a shoutout. His name is Dr. Paul Lessard. I call him the Walter White of Weed. We did a year and a half of R&D together and came up with 25 different iterations of recipes before finding the mix that we work with today. We also work with a board-certified dermatologist, Dr. Kristina Collins, who is incredible. She went to Harvard and is truly an expert in her field. She’s able to explain exactly what’s happening in the body when it comes in contact with cannabis products. I’m often humbled and amazed by how much talent we now have on our team.

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

Yessss. The whole goal of our company is to enhance people’s sex lives through cannabis so we’re currently in R&D for a whole host of additional products that are aimed towards enhancing people’s sexual experience. But if I told you the details, I’d have to kill you. All I can say is, stay tuned…

Ok. Thank you for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. Despite great progress that has been made we still have a lot more work to do to achieve gender parity in this industry. According to this report in Entrepreneur, less than 25 percent of cannabis businesses are run by women. In your opinion or experience, what 3 things can be done by a) individuals b) companies and/or c) society to support greater gender parity moving forward?

This is a huge question and one that can easily become very political and divisive. There are always going to be tremendous hurdles to climb to start your own business, especially in a field that’s so new, rapidly evolving and still relatively fringe. So here are my tips:

Don’t allow fear of failure to steer you away from your goals. Don’t let imposter syndrome hold you back. Be humble, be willing to learn, fail, listen, pivot and go into something with very little preparation and knowledge and don’t stop when it gets hard.

Ask for things. Use your network, however untraditional it may be. Success doesn’t have to look a certain way and you don’t need to be an expert to dive into a field and play with the big kids. Everyone’s just figuring it out. The network through which I distributed my first products and eventually found my business partners was the network surrounding the bar I tended. I made friends with regulars and built relationships with the people who were around me and those were the people who I eventually asked for mentorship from. Not only did they offer mentorship, they also offered funding and collaboration.

Take responsibility for your own pleasure, your own life, your own passions and your own ideas. There are a million reasons why we can remain stagnant or remain safe and the narratives and conditioning around that is real. But ultimately, if you want something and you aren’t willing to give up when it gets hard, you can find a way there.

You are a “Cannabis Insider”. If you had to advise someone about 5 non intuitive things one should know to succeed in the cannabis industry, what would you say? Can you please give a story or an example for each.

Many of the stories behind these lessons have spanned years, but here are some lessons that I have worked very hard to learn:

When it gets really hard, keep going. I remind myself of this all the time. I learned this from my partners, who have more experience in the startup world than I do. They know that starting a business is a process of overcoming hurdles every single day, meaning that when you approach a hurdle, it’s not a sign that you did anything wrong, it’s just that day’s hurdle. Expect failure, expect challenges and when they come up, don’t let them knock you off balance. Roll with them and keep going. You’re the only one who’s going to prevent you from being successful and if you fail, it will be because at some point, you decided to quit. So just, you know: don’t quit.

Cannabis is a tough industry. There are high taxes, it’s very regulated and to make it worse, the rules and regulations are constantly changing. So put a good amount of time into educating yourself. That’s half the battle. Know what you’re up against.

Invest in a great attorney who can help you get through the red tape — of both this industry, and of the startup world in general. It’s more money upfront but believe me, it will save you money in the long run.

Relationships are very important. Not just with your investors but also with all the people who you work with on a daily basis. Our products are sold at dispensaries so that means that whether or not it sells is partially based on whether or not the employees at the dispensary are recommending it and have good things to say about it. Every dispensary is different and every person is different and in order for your product to succeed, you have to connect with the people who put it into the hands of the consumer.

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

Oh man. There are so many things.

First of all, cannabis changed my life. As an athlete, it completely changed my game, allowing me to run marathons without destroying my body. And now, it has revolutionized my sex life. I’m fully convinced that cannabis is a miracle plant and because legalization is new, I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of cannabis’ potential.

Despite all of its benefits, cannabis is only barely becoming normalized. I think CBD is a great gateway for normalizing other forms and parts of cannabis, meaning that it’s becoming accessible and welcoming to people who normally wouldn’t turn to cannabis but are now finding entry points to it. I’m just excited that it’s getting to a place in society where more people have access to it.

The history of cannabis in the US is super cool! Cannabis as a medicinal plant has been around for thousands of years and used to be prescribed by doctors in tinctures for therapeutic reasons. But when it was first used for this reason, we didn’t have the science and tools to regulate the dosage so doctors turned to pharmaceuticals that were more easily dosed. When prohibition was ending in the US, the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) turned their attention toward cannabis as the evil that would replace alcohol. It was entirely marketing. They rebranded cannabis as “marijuana,” which felt more dangerous and elicit, and branded it as the gateway drug to street drugs that were actually dangerous. Knowing the history of cannabis shows us that the way that we frame something determines so much about how we, as individuals and as a society, approach and experience it.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

As of now, unfortunately, cannabis is still pretty expensive. Part of this is taxes and part of this is just because it’s such a new industry. The fact that these products are cost prohibitive to a lot of people who could use them is a shame and I really hope that changes over time.

The fact that cannabis products can still only be sold at dispensaries is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people.

There’s still a ton of stigma around cannabis. Even CBD products for sports recovery and chronic pain with no psychotropic effects whatsoever still have stigma because they’re connected to marijuana, which has been framed as an illicit substance.

What are your thoughts about federal legalization of cannabis? If you could speak to your Senator, what would be your most persuasive argument regarding why they should or should not pursue federal legalization?

I would love to see cannabis products being completely federally legal. I’m not a lobbyist and have no intention of becoming one but on a legal note, I would argue that there’s a historical precedent for cannabis being used in medical and therapeutic environments with very positive proven results.

Today, cigarettes are legal, but they are heavily regulated, highly taxed, and they are somewhat socially marginalized. Would you like cannabis to have a similar status to cigarettes or different? Can you explain?

I actually think that cannabis has a similar status to cigarettes in a lot of ways. It’s highly regulated, highly taxed and socially marginalized. There are a lot of differences though too. Just in terms of ingestion, I know that I personally have trouble inhaling smoke into my lungs. I don’t find it to be a pleasant experience and in my marathon days, it hurt my performance. Cannabis is unique in that there are more and more ways to ingest cannabis so everyone can find a way that works for them. As for the health effects, positive or negative, they’re pretty different. I don’t know the science behind tobacco but I’m deeply immersed in the science behind cannabis and there are a lot of studies out there that show extraordinary health benefits of cannabis, both physically and mentally. As for where these products should be sold and to whom is a larger question of lobbying, legality, education and regulation, but I do believe that cannabis should continue to be normalized in its many uses.

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

Yes! Live life to the climax.

This is our company’s motto but it has a lot of meaning to me personally as well. Climax means a different thing in every different context and for every different person. Every day, living life to the climax is going to be different. Some days, it will mean staying in bed all day catching up on rest. Some days, it will mean going on a hike. Some days, it will mean making inroads on starting the business of your dreams. It just means that every day, you should do what makes you incredibly happy and satisfied.

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

My big mission in life would be to improve sex education. Coming from a religious background, my sex education wasn’t great, and this is a very common experience. Religion aside, the sex education I got in school had nothing to do with intimacy, consent and comfort, and was completely detached from bodies and emotions. It was a purely physical education about the mechanics of sex and the science of physical development.

What this means is that the way that a lot of kids and teens today get educated about what sex actually looks like or what it means in their life is through porn. And while porn can be fun to watch, it shouldn’t be the basis of your education around sex. Porn is watching two paid performers engage in acts that are not motivated by pleasure but are motivated by profit. It’s also important to note that in most scenarios, the actors will have met just an hour before filming, leaving little to no time to build the intimacy, relational dynamics and vulnerability that are foundational to many of our sex lives. Porn is only about the physical act and doesn’t factor in intimacy, vulnerability and connection. If someone uses porn as the basis of their sex education, when they actually experience a sexual encounter, it will be very different which can lead to sexual disappoint, frustration and feelings of inadequacy.

I think sex education should not just speak to the mechanics of sex but also to communication, intimacy and consent.

Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you only continued success!

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Cannabis Industry, With Katie Enright of Lavinia was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.