Category: Featured

Female Disruptors: Amani Wells-Onyioha of Sole Strategies On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life” : This advice was given to me by my mom, and it really rings true for me here at Sole. The work we do isn’t easy, but I do believe it’s my calling and there is nothing else I would rather be doing.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amani Wells-Onyioha.

Amani found her passion for politics during her time in undergrad. Since then, she’s been working tirelessly to get progressives elected throughout the country and implement true change in America. Now, working behind the scenes as Sole Strategies’ operations director, Amani helps keeps the team afloat, ensuring campaigns and the company run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

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 became politically activated after the Travon Martin case. I could not believe that when video evidence was present, George Zimmerman was still able to get away with murder. It was at that point that I realized just how deeply the issues in our system ran. I realized that it would take real systematic and institutional change in order for things like this to be prevented from happening again. After several years working in the political space and assisting in different democratic campaigns, I came to Sole Strategies with a goal to make the biggest impact I can.

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

What makes me and Sole Strategies “disruptive,” or what separates us from other people in the political and campaigning industry, is the fact that we are NOT consultants. Many people who work with politicians charge a fee to simply give advice. What makes us different and what has helped us to disrupt this industry is that we do the hands-on work. Our team of operatives physically do what consultants “advise”. That’s what’s made us more valuable in this industry. We’re not just talk. We’re experts doing the work with our clients every step of their race.

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

I think my funniest mistake comes from just being a newbie at this. I remember when we first started tracking our employees’ hours. We would just have them submit them to us in any way they chose. That led to one former employee submitting his hours on a crinkled up old piece of notebook paper that he took a photo of. Needless to say, I instituted a more formal time tracking system moving forward.

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?

One of my mentors was my professor in grad school. Her name is Dr. Everbach and she is an amazing, badass woman who was so smart, and wise and didn’t take any shit. As a woman in education (she taught Race, Gender, and Media, for which I was a TA) who was passionate about the issues in America, she never held back and was fearlessly dedicated to her work. She was committed to progress and educating our students on the complexities of these issues. She inspired me a lot along the way. Love her.

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?

Being disruptive just for the sake of it isn’t what’s important. But sometimes getting things done means being disruptive. I think as women in business, we start out trying to tote a line. Not being too disagreeable, being trusting, believing in everyone we encounter, and trying to keep the peace. But sometimes doing good business, doing what’s best for the company and for your mission, isn’t going to be what makes everyone happy — especially when your goal for yourself and your company disrupts the status quo of the industry. But this is positive because you’re adding something new to the landscape and setting a new precedent. This type of disruption doesn’t have to be on a grand scale. For us, being disruptive sometimes means refusing to work with people who don’t respect our staff, or turning down firm contracts with people who don’t align with our mission. As long as our motives are in the best interests of our company, our people and our work, it’s all positive in the end because each decision we make, large or small, makes an impact.

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. “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life” : This advice was given to me by my mom, and it really rings true for me here at Sole. The work we do isn’t easy, but I do believe it’s my calling and there is nothing else I would rather be doing.
2. “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” Starting a business is scary and taking on big name clients can be intimidating. But these are never reasons to give up. We use this fear to fuel us, because we know that going for it and trying will leave us in a better position than not trying at all. We have been so lucky to see that the risks we’ve taken have paid off in major ways. Being paralyzed by fear will get you nowhere, but taking risks can get you everything you’ve ever wanted.
3. “Always be a sponge” : I learn new lessons in this business every day. It’s important to be open to new ways of thinking and to learn from what didn’t work before so that I can do better next time. There’s never only one way to do what I do. It takes collaboration, listening to my team, and being open to really succeed.

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

We’re in the middle of a rebranding at the moment, which is really exciting! Our business has grown so much, and it’s time for our brand to grow with it. So be on the lookout for that!

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

I think it boils down to lack of respect. Misogyny is alive and well. One thing we deal with is men trying to manipulate or handle us in ways that I know for a fact they wouldn’t try with other men. I’ve been called a “little girl” just to give an example of some of the ways I’ve been spoken to. I feel like women in leadership are tried more, and we have to show a certain level of strength before we are respected. It isn’t fair, but what we do is so important to us. It’s definitely worth it.

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

There’s a book called The 4 Agreements which is pretty much a set of standards, or guide, on how to live your life. It’s written by Don Miguel Ruiz and he coined it as “a practical guide to personal freedom.” The agreements are: be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best. It’s a quick read, but the lessons are valuable and they help you get out of your head and live life in a less anxious way.

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. 🙂

Such a hard question! There are a few issues that really get me wound up and I’d like to fix immediately, but one that I think could have a ripple effect is implementing more socialist policies into American society. So many of the struggles Americans face could be easily rectified with the wave of a wand if we could get our politicians on board. Free healthcare is also one of the number one items on my list.. It makes no sense to me the amount of people in this country that die from things that could have been treated if only they could afford preventative care. This change alone could save millions of lives and make people feel like illness won’t break the bank or end their life.

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

The most cliche quote, but the one that has helped me get to where I am today is “just believe in yourself.” Each day we’re faced with something challenging, but just having faith in who I am, my capabilities, and not letting self — doubt creep in shows I’m able to stay vigilant, and do my job the best I can each day.

How can our readers follow you online?

Follow us @SoleStrategies on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter

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

Thank you so much for having me!

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Female Disruptors: Amani Wells-Onyioha of Sole Strategies On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Chazona Baum of MAXX Potential On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm. This is probably one of the easiest traps to fall into as a leader because you want to do whatever you can to ensure your team’s success. But just as airlines advise parents to put on oxygen masks before helping their children with theirs, you can’t bring the energy your team needs if you’ve drained yours.

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

Chazona is a Principal Technologist in Norfolk, VA, where she grows teams of technologists and prepares them for fulfilling careers in IT. She has worked on engagements ranging from onshoring work from India that built transparency and capabilities at home to helping enterprises present themselves to their customers in a new light. Before changing careers through MAXX Potential’s transformational Apprenticeship program, she spent a decade serving customers across the hospitality and insurance industries. She enjoys sewing, writing, and spending time with her young children.

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

Likewise, thank you!

I started like many in my generation, building Geocities pages and MySpace profiles, but at the time, many of us didn’t take our tech seriously as a career. So instead, I got a series of “real jobs,” mainly in customer service and support types of roles.

It can be frustrating in those roles because you are often the depository for people’s complaints and problems with a product or service, but you rarely have any real agency to correct them. In each company I worked for, I started to look at how I could get involved in the technical or product side of the business. That kind of transition wasn’t feasible because either their technical roles were handled onsite in some other region, or they required a four-year degree I didn’t have in addition to the proven skills. At one point, I was raising an infant, working full time, and considering enrolling back in school full time, but I knew if I did this, my work or my parenting would suffer.

So, I took opportunities to at least build up technical skills, figuring that someone had to give me a chance if I got good enough. I stayed up late when my children went to bed and logged into freeCodeCamp to brush up on web development. I had competing priorities for my time, so I focused on practical projects that would help myself and my family, like creating a website for people to RSVP to my sister’s baby shower or a web application to share kids’ photos by invitation-only.

I was perhaps optimistic about the industry’s willingness to take a chance on a plucky upstart. After a hundred applications and about a dozen interviews with no success, I considered going back to service work just to put food on the table. Ultimately securing an apprenticeship at MAXX Potential provided the opportunity and mentorship needed for me to change the course of my life.

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

Norfolk is a city that routinely battles tidal flooding, and we established our local office inside of one of its’ flood zones. Most of the time, this only had a minor impact — as long as you tracked the tides, you would know when it would be good to get lunch or travel the streets.

Once, a nor’easter came through, and flooding was much worse than usual. We had a line of cars and trucks stalling right outside our office because their drivers had misread the water level. I will never forget the humanity shown by our team as several of our technologists rushed out to help push the vehicles and their owners to safety.

In that same nor’easter, a young woman steadfastly motored along on a Lime scooter as if it were any other day. Her resolve to power through knee-high waters became an example of grit we still talk about today.

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?

Many of us have seen the stories about the engineer who dropped a database or broke DNS. It wasn’t funny at the time, but my most memorable mistake when first starting was inadvertently taking down a server.

I had made some decisions when building a piece of software that assumed additional changes would happen sooner than they did, which led to a runaway train situation with memory consumption. As someone who had mainly worked with high-level programming languages, how I worked with system memory wasn’t something I considered strongly at the time.

I learned many lessons from that incident, from engineering lessons around database configuration and system monitoring to more human ones like running a postmortem and not counting your chickens before they hatch. As you can imagine, it was a mistake I made precisely once.

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

I think the nature of our model makes our company stand out. There are many firms out there trying to solve the problem of the tech talent gap, but all are approaching it differently.

Schools and bootcamps can be beneficial, but because their students are their customers, they risk overpromising how practical their education is when they are too eager to give students what they want.

Staffing firms can fill gaps, but there can be dangers when treating humans too much like commodities to be traded and bought.

Apprenticeships strike a good balance, with businesses extracting value from the work and the aspiring technologists being the workers who produce it. We stand out from other apprenticeship programs as most that I’ve seen require a contract with a payback clause or extensive flexibility to relocate; at MAXX Potential, we demand neither.

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

Because we help businesses get their work done better, it’s hard to find an example of a project that doesn’t help people.

I am excited to have the opportunity to help a well-known healthcare group better inform and serve its community, a financial services firm providing the chance to regain access to credit, and a digital firm giving small businesses the ability to reach their customers. As a company, some of the most exciting new projects we see involve an area of tech most aspiring technologists have never heard of: Robotic Process Automation. By automating routine processes that are necessary but typically not engaging, we’re able to clear employees’ plates for more meaningful work while reducing errors.

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

I think few would be truly satisfied with where things currently are for women in STEM. While lack of a pipeline of qualified candidates can be an issue, as someone who struggled to grasp that first rung on the IT ladder myself, I don’t think we can assume it all boils down to lack of interest.

In many ways, necessary changes likely differ between recruitment of women in STEM and retention of those same women. And both efforts depend on each other.

On the recruitment side, reluctance to take risks on entry-level talent hurts women and underrepresented people especially hard. This risk gap is a large part of why I am such a proponent of apprenticeship-based programs like MAXX Potential where, regardless of your background, if you have the grit and aptitude for the work, you will have an opportunity to prove yourself. Additionally, I think how we talk about IT and math concepts can make a huge difference. I’ve heard so many women describe themselves as unfit for these roles because they equated IT with math, and math with abstract concepts to memorize. While some areas like data science are more math-heavy, strength in this field depends on more human skills like communication and resourcefulness. Likewise, while it feels like quoting a Disney movie to say that math is involved in every “rock and tree and creature,” it truly is how we make sense of the hidden rules of the world and life around us — we just don’t typically present it that way.

On the retention side, we need to look at factors like advancement and balance once women are here, which may sometimes seem at odds with one another. If women aren’t rising to roles that give them a tangible impact on the values and direction of their organizations, we’re likely to continue to see the same gaps. Businesses operating from 1950s mindsets of working long hours while someone else manages home and family harm everyone, including fathers who want to be more active in their children’s lives.

I think the pandemic has made it even starker for everyone that if we can’t make modern employment work for working parents, we will lose their talent and perspectives when they drop out of the workforce. When women underearn men, is it any wonder that they are usually the ones to sacrifice their career for their family if someone needs to stay home?

For more on the balance side and new perspectives for leaders, I recommend reading Indra Nooyi’s new book, My Life in Full, as she has created a masterful accounting of her life and career, including the tradeoffs that have come with it.

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?

Honestly, most of the significant challenges I see women facing today are also experienced by men, like the parenthood penalty. The most urgent challenge I’ve seen only women face in this field is a lack of opportunity for the critical feedback they need to grow. The risk when attempting to recruit women into this industry is that we make getting to that first rung on the ladder so celebratory that it’s like you’ve won just by showing up. If we are so afraid of turning women off that we fail to give them the same feedback we’d give men, how can those same women build the competencies they need to rise to the C-suite if they so choose? As leaders, we need to consider whether we perpetuate the “delicate, virtuous maidens” myth.

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

I haven’t experienced many “myths” of being a woman in Tech. Contrary to my experience in hospitality, those I’ve met have always presumed competence and reliability. I recognize that every woman’s lived experience varies, and this certainly doesn’t reflect every industry. As I understand it, there are also considerable differences between experiences in Tech on the East Coast as opposed to the West.

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. Try to learn early on which balls you’re juggling are glass and which ones are rubber. More likely than not, something is going to drop at some point, and you want to ensure that it’s something safe to bounce when that happens.
2. Don’t default to the rescue service for your team. As a leader, you probably don’t want your team to fail. The challenge if you rush in too soon to solve problems and save your team members is that you can stifle their initiative and creativity. Pretty soon, they stop trying to solve problems because they know you’ll handle it.
3. Good leadership depends on understanding what’s important to each member of your team. Keep in mind that they are the hero of their own stories! If you get too busy to connect with your team, that should be a warning sign that you need to change something about what you’re doing.
4. Don’t stop seeking mentorship and coaching once you get into leadership. It’s hard to see your blind spots, and as a leader, your strengths and weaknesses can have a multiplying or diminishing effect on your team. Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers can help with recognizing these effects.
5. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm. This is probably one of the easiest traps to fall into as a leader because you want to do whatever you can to ensure your team’s success. But just as airlines advise parents to put on oxygen masks before helping their children with theirs, you can’t bring the energy your team needs if you’ve drained yours.

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

I find the more you achieve, the more intimidating you can come across and the harder it may be for reports to feel confident in reaching out. I follow Colin Powell’s maxim that “the day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.” To that end, it is more crucial than ever to find opportunities to connect with your reports and to share little moments of vulnerability that humanize you. While you want to maintain healthy boundaries in your relationship, they still need to recognize that you’re not fundamentally different from them so they can aspire to keep growing themselves.

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

The larger your team gets, the more crucial it is that you are not their only resource. Every member of your team should understand that they have a network of potential resources that may include yourself, their coworkers, others on different teams or in other areas of leadership, or even people outside your company. You cannot be everything for everyone, and attempting to do so will only harm yourself and your team.

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

I can’t stress this point enough: we all had help getting where we are.

The two people who have had the most substantial impact on my career have done so differently.

Early on, when I was trying to find my way in tech and see if this could even be viable for me, Jesse Tolj, Senior Software Engineer at COLAB, provided instrumental mentorship and stressed that, like him, I had the aptitude for tech work. He was the one who reached out to let me know that MAXX Potential, the apprenticeship company I would get my start at, was broadening to my area. He encouraged me to pursue it and was confident that it would be a fit.

At MAXX Potential, founder Kim Mahan has had a decisive influence on my career, primarily through sponsorship for opportunities I may not have considered myself ready for and by challenging my assumptions. I likely would not have leaped into technical management if not for her ability to see that potential.

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

I’m a big proponent of holding the door open for others as I know what a transformational opportunity it was for someone to take that chance on me. Just under thirty people with careers in Tech have one of my projects at MAXX Potential as a catalyst in their origin stories, and hearing about their continued success, promotions, and new opportunities is always a highlight for me.

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

Personally, it’s saddening to see how little we trust each other as people or sometimes even see the humanity in others. As a society, we benefit most when we have an optimistic outlook on the nature of humans. If I was to try to start a movement, I think it might be as simple as taking a moment to apply Hanlon’s razor to situations that upset us. If this situation could be adequately explained by ignorance or negligence, we probably shouldn’t presume malice in that person.

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

“In life, there are no essentially major or minor characters. To that extent, all fiction and biography, and most historiography, is a lie. Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.”

This paradigm shift has been the most beneficial for me as it made a night-and-day difference in my communication style and strategies. We all benefit most when we work within diverse groups, which means that, at least in theory, we’re not going to agree with everyone all the time. No one benefits from echo chambers or lack of accountability.

But often, when someone disagrees with us on critical things we value, it tends to impact our perspective on the entire person. We see this all the time in the public sphere. And when you think someone’s the villain in your story, you’re unlikely to have a productive conversation with them or to have a chance at changing their mind. I’ve found that approaching situations from the viewpoint that people are doing what they genuinely believe is best with their circumstances leads to better outcomes more often than not.

It’s also a game-changer for things like public speaking that can be terrifying for people. Have I gotten on stage somewhere and said something the wrong way, like a verbal typo? Probably. But I’ve also found that with most people more concerned about their problems, these minor mistakes rarely get in the way of the larger message. Most people don’t analyze my words and actions to the same degree that I do and recognizing that can be liberating.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I would personally love to have a meal with Chetna Gala Sinha, a woman I feel is truly inspirational and has already paved roads for others where there were none by establishing the first bank in India for rural women. Her work has directly impacted the lives of roughly half a million women, many of them mothers like herself.

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

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Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Chazona Baum of MAXX Potential On The 5 Leadership Lessons… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Celestia Howe of Cofo Provisions On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Worry less. Someone once told me that worrying is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do but it won’t get you anywhere. There’s so much to worry about these days, I think about all that I do have control over and you’ll have better luck with lifestyle tweak #4.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Celestia Howe of Cofo Provisions.

Celestia Howe is the Founder and Chief Community Officer of Cofo Provisions in Colorado.As an avid athlete and mom, Celestia created Cofo Provisions Marine Collagen to keep her feeling strong and energized. Celestia is committed to clean, environmentally-conscious collagen that helps others stay active and feel good inside.

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

I was working long hours at a tech company, competing in mountain bike races, taking care of my young daughter and I was physically exhausted all the time. I couldn’t have the usual bars and gels since I had been diagnosed with Celiac disease. That’s when I discovered that collagen could be a gut-friendly alternative to provide me with more energy and protein while also helping repair and renew my muscles and joints.

Collagen seemed like a perfectly nutrient-dense alternative. Only I had no idea where the collagen was coming from. I started to do some research and found that most of the collagen was from the hides of cows and pigs. Suddenly the easy to digest alternative made my stomach turn. I also found that most collagen was not sustainably sourced, which I knew was important to me and others. I decided that I was going to start a company that took into consideration where the collagen was coming from. I chose to work with Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) approved fisheries and use only organic, environmentally friendly ingredients.

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

I had a life-changing moment during 2020 that further cemented my dedication to clean, real food. During the COVID lockdowns, I wasn’t sure if Cofo Provisions could make it as a company. I had a wonderful partner, Dan, who encouraged me to keep going. He believed in Cofo and my mission. However, in the summer of 2020, he developed a rare neurological condition caused by toxicity in bovine meat. He fought as hard as he could but unfortunately passed away later that fall. As devastated as I was, I knew now that I needed to find the highest quality collagen without toxins if I were to continue forward. No one should worry about ingesting toxins in their food.

After Dan died, I created D’s Trees and Greens which gives a percentage of Cofo sales to local nonprofits committed to helping provide low-income families with affordable organic foods. The big lesson I learned that year was that life is fragile and I no longer treated Cofo Provisions as just a company but as a community.

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?

Cofo Provisions officially started as a marine collagen, MCT protein mix. MCT was hot and we were chasing that trend. We created single-serve packaging in what we thought were easy to sell boxes. Only no one knew what to do with them. Was it a supplement? Was it food? How do I use it? Our messaging was to jump on the MCT keto trend and hope everyone would know what to do. Kind of like Moira from Schitt’s Creek telling David to just fold the cheese in. We weren’t 100% behind our product, and it showed.

Consumers will stick with a trend, but they won’t stick with your product necessarily. I needed to get back to the root of why I started Cofo in the first place. I decided that I wasn’t going to go for what’s hot, but for what I believed in and that was becoming a sustainably sourced, wild USA marine collagen company providing the highest quality marine collagen on the market. The community and consumers will stick by your product when they know that your values align. Authenticity was key. We had to get back to what we believed in.

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?

I want to increase physical and emotional well-being through clean, sustainably-sourced collagen. When we are outside doing the things we love, surrounded by our friends and nature, we feel abundant. I want Cofo collagen to help our joints, bones and gut stay healthy so people can enjoy the outside, connect with their communities and live vibrant lives no matter their age.

I also want to build awareness toward how our food choices impact Earths’ natural resources. Nourishing your body clean food that has a low environmental footprint and is sustainably-sourced not only helps you feel better, it helps create a healthier Earth for us to live in. This intrinsic connection between Earth and our food defines our values and our commitment to clean, sustainable and bioethical collagen.

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

1. Start the morning with a daily intention that answers the question, What is right for me — right now? Sometimes the answer is a focus on self-care, an introspective hike in the woods, taking time to just sit in quiet or focusing on fun. This simple practice helps me live the day aligned in higher energy and balance.

2. Get outside and move around. I know it’s not easy for everyone, but you can get outside and walk around even in a big city. It not only clears my mind, but it makes me grateful to be in the world.

3. Drink a green juice mid-morning or early afternoon. In the morning I make a green juice to take to work. Instead of going out for lunch or eating a carb-heavy bar, this is my go-to habit. I blend oat keifer, spinach, parsley, celery, ginger, turmeric, 2 tbsp of Cofo collagen and water and put it in a Glass Jar. There is no formal ‘recipe’ I just add and blend! Since there is collagen protein, it keeps me going until I get back home.

4. Sleep. As we get older, sleep doesn’t always come easy. I like to set a bedtime for myself, just like I did with my daughter. This way, I have a goal to get into bed at a certain time without any electronics nearby and start to wind down.

5. Worry less. Someone once told me that worrying is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do but it won’t get you anywhere. There’s so much to worry about these days, I think about all that I do have control over and you’ll have better luck with lifestyle tweak #4.

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

Our tagline is “Be Outside Feel Good Inside”. What that means to me is by putting good clean food into your body, you start to feel good inside. Being outside only elevates that feeling. I would love more than anything to create a community based around the outdoors and access to clean, real food. My mental health is directly impacted by what I eat. When I eat poorly, I feel low. Our focus should be back to the basics; enjoying the world outside while ensuring that our food is from the cleanest sources possible.

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

1. Success doesn’t happen overnight. I know this seems obvious, it’s exciting to start something you’re passionate about, but it’s also essential to have patience, grit and an intense belief in your purpose.

2. Just because you think your product is amazing doesn’t mean everyone will automatically agree. Collagen is something people love or have no idea what you’re talking about. Educating our community about the benefits of marine collagen became a top priority for us.

3. People kind of suck. The truth is when you’re just starting out people will try to take advantage of you because they know you need them to grow your business. You’re the little fry. Do your research on any company you choose to work with and that means learning and observing how they treat their customers and if they actually deliver. If you can account for this, you’ll be more innovative, leaner and save money in the long run. The happiest day of Cofo was when I fired our bully commercial kitchen and moved to a bigger FDA-certified manufacturing outfit.

4. Being the little fish in a big pond means making sacrifices and having the resilience to be okay with mistakes. Don’t let the mistake linger, fix it, learn from it, move on.

5. Hire people based on their work ethic, not their resume. When you’re in startup mode, it’s all hands-on deck, so you may have a worker that is less qualified on paper, but willing to learn and jump in wherever they are needed.

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

I would have to say it’s a mashup between sustainability and environmental changes, which ultimately affects mental health. Cofo is dedicated to working with vendors who are sustainably sourced and bioethical. We partner with Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) approved fisheries working to make our ocean healthier for future generations. This isn’t always easy, but if we didn’t hold to our values, we would be giving up what makes Cofo authentic.

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

Find us on Instagram @cofoprovisions and our website Cofoprovisions.com. I would encourage your readers to go to our website and sign up for our monthly newsletter that provides recipes and articles about how marine collagen can help your overall health and wellness.

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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

Women In Wellness: Julie McClure of HelloMe On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Get enough quality sleep. So many people are sleep-deprived and running off of caffeine and sugar. Getting 7–8 hours of sleep per night is key for optimal health and wellness — as this is when your body and nervous system rejuvenate. It decreases stress levels, helps balance mood and is the time for cellular repair (important for many things, including immunity). Staying off screens 2 hours before bed, wearing blue light glasses while on your computer/watching tv (especially at night), having a wind-down routine before bed with a relaxing ritual (gentle stretching, meditation, reading or an Epsom salt bath), reducing sugar consumption and limiting or avoiding caffeine after 2 pm (stimulants) — all helpful tips for getting a good night’s sleep and feeling rested enough to take on the next day.

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

Julie McClure is an entrepreneur; advisor in the beauty, health & wellness space and is a clean living & hormonal balance expert. Currently, she is the Founder & CEO of Hello.Me, a brand focused on helping women take back control of their hormones so that they can get back to looking and feeling their best. Hello.Me’s innovative, science-backed supplement products solve for the root cause of wellness & beauty challenges — hormonal balance. Julie’s own personal experiences became the springboard for her mission to help others and she prides herself on championing women in the entrepreneurial and femtech spaces.

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

I’m Canadian and have always had a passion for and interest in health & fitness. Although I grew up thinking that I wanted to be a medical doctor, I pivoted after finishing my science degree and went to business school. After almost a decade of working on Wall Street and living with chronic migraines (while on birth control), I left the industry to reconnect with my passion for wellness and to solve my own health problem.

Specifically, I had started taking The Pill in my early 20s when I was in business school and quickly developed chronic migraines. My migraines persisted for 10 years (4 to 6 per week), putting me in survival mode throughout my highly demanding career in corporate finance. I finally started to listen to my body screaming at me at age 33 — took matters into my own hands and quit my job on Wall Street to figure out my health.

I began my new journey by saying no to the endless pharmaceutical pain killers, which my neurologists were recommending as the only possible solution for my chronic pain (at least until menopause, despite being in my early 30s!). And, I took a full year off beyond that to solve the problem and to reconnect with the person I used to be.

One of the first people I met after stepping out of the finance industry (while doing a 21-day cleanse) was a natural practitioner who, upon hearing of my symptoms of migraines and then developing anxiety, asked if I was on birth control? With my quick ‘yes’ response, she began to tell me that hormonal birth control was causing me to have these chronic yet common birth control symptoms. Little did I know that my body was being stripped of key nutrients such as B complex vitamins, CoQ10, probiotics, magnesium, etc. and that these depletions were the key contributors to how horrible I had been feeling for 10 years!

The science was not as caught up at the time re: hormonal birth control’s effect on women’s nutrient status so I took her word (I was desperate for a possible solution) and went off of birth control. I then proceeded to spend months nourishing and rebuilding my body (and my nutrient levels) in order to reduce the systemic inflammation. After 10 months, I was a completely new person, having 1 to 2 migraines a month — down from 25 or more a month. This complete change in quality of life inspired me to want to continue on my journey in the wellness space. I leveraged my science degree to apply to postgraduate naturopathic medical school in Toronto — to learn about clinical nutrition, botanical medicine, physiology, etc. I met my great friend Elizabeth Goldspink on the first day of ND school (in downward dog… while I was teaching yoga to the incoming class!). Fast forward a few years, the stars aligned for us to collaborate on creating game changing products to empower women with the natural solutions they need to get back to living their best lives. Based on our personal experiences with hormonal birth control and the common complaints from all of the female clients in Elizabeth’s personal medical practice, we knew it was time for a brand (enter Hello.Me!) to start solving for the massive yet unmet pain points associated with hormonal imbalance — an untapped and huge area in need of innovation and focus.

As women, we have at least 42 years of fluctuating hormones. Hello.Me was born to eliminate the side effects associated with these hormonal fluctuations by getting women’s hormones back into formation so that they can be their most authentic, beautiful and badass selves and can gracefully transition from one life stage to the next.

Hello.Me launched its first product, Top Up Tonic, in the summer of 2020 to address the 74MM women (in the US alone) in their reproductive years who suffer from PMS and/or symptoms (and long-term health risks) associated with nutrient depletions from hormonal birth control. Top Up Tonic is a once-a-day capsule that contains the 18 key nutrients, probiotics and antioxidants women need to keep their hormones balanced and feeling on top of the world.

Hello.Me has been changing the quality of lives of women across America ever since — and with so much more to come!

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?

Wow — the most interesting story! I have many stories… and what is defined as ‘interesting’ is subjective to who is reading this but I’ll happily share some color on when I knew it was time to make a personal pivot in my career and how success has been redefined for me over the years.

I have experienced a lot in the business world but having to overcome my health challenges have been my greatest source of personal growth and inspiration for my entrepreneurial career. I began my career wanting what everyone else in my highly competitive business class of Type A students wanted — to obtain the top job on Wall Street, to be ranked in the top tier of my peers at the firm, to get the highest eligible cash bonus at year-end and be put up for early promotion (‘stay on the fast track’). I was extremely driven and sought perfection in my deliverables at work at all times — at the expense of my health. 9–11 happened and I had a big wake up call. After watching the Twin Towers fall to pieces from a screen at the Milan airport (where I was traveling at the time… I was very fortunate to not be in NYC — where I lived — that week), I realized for the first time that life is short. There was no turning back after this moment… the questions started flowing re: my purpose and path forward and whether what I was doing was fulfilling my soul. Although I tried to push these thoughts to the background in the daytime, they would show up in my dreams as nightmares. Eventually, forcing me to realize that a new path was needed. The pursuit of ‘perceived’ traditional material success was no longer enough to keep me getting up in the morning. I took a deep look at my values and asked — ‘if my life were to end tomorrow, would I be happy with how I had been living and spending my time’. The answer brought immediate tears to my eyes and I knew that it was time to make a major shift. My body was screaming at me (which was exhausting in itself) and my soul was tired. So, I hit the pause button — which allowed me to step outside of the box and my comfort zone (high paying job) to reconnect with my passion for health. This was the catalyst for the beginning of my journey as an entrepreneur — allowing me pursue what I believed was my purpose — inspire others to live their most authentic and best lives.

Fast forward a decade, if you were to ask me today how I define success, I would say it is living a purposeful and fulfilling life that brings you contentment and inner peace and leaves you sitting at the end of your life with no major regrets (e.g., of things you were too scared to try in case you failed/didn’t succeed).

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?

Many of my biggest learnings have been around people and talent. Early in my career (e.g., my first job on Wall Street), I worked at one of the most prestigious banks which, to this day, I have the utmost respect for. However, when asked to pick my group, I knowingly hand-picked one of the few groups renowned for being extremely hard on its analysts and associates. Having never worked 100 hours with anyone, I was lured in by the industry and thought the sexiness of the industry would be enough to fuel me, regardless of the reputation of the personalities in the group. From this experience, I learned the importance of choosing great leaders (from a people management perspective). Specifically, always looking for and choosing people who want to see you thrive, who nurture your & your colleagues’ talents and who take a personal interest in you. After a year in this difficult group, I made an unusual and very bold move for a first-year analyst to transfer out of the group (despite the severe backlash from one of the toughest members in the group). I did this because I felt like it was the right thing to do. I was then rewarded for this act of courage. I spent the next 2 years working for some of the firm’s most talented individuals and best leaders — two women who were instrumental in my professional development and the firm’s Co-CEOs — who exemplified exceptional leadership. I continue to be incredibly grateful for this learning and these experiences to this day.

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

Historically as women, we have always been led to believe that hormonal fluctuations and symptoms of hormonal imbalance are something we just have to ‘deal with’ — it comes with the territory of being a woman. Hello.Me is on a mission to change what it means to be ‘hormonal’. It’s time to remove the stigmas and to open up the dialogue about our hormones! By empowering women around the world with education, a safe space to talk with our hormone coaches, a budding but powerful community and natural solutions to resolve challenging symptoms, Hello.Me is helping women to shift from surviving to thriving. When we feel our best, we see the world through new lenses and make the most profound and beautiful impact on the world. So, in essence, Hello.Me is helping to make an impact on the world one bold and beautiful woman at a time.

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

1. Get enough quality sleep. So many people are sleep-deprived and running off of caffeine and sugar. Getting 7–8 hours of sleep per night is key for optimal health and wellness — as this is when your body and nervous system rejuvenate. It decreases stress levels, helps balance mood and is the time for cellular repair (important for many things, including immunity). Staying off screens 2 hours before bed, wearing blue light glasses while on your computer/watching tv (especially at night), having a wind-down routine before bed with a relaxing ritual (gentle stretching, meditation, reading or an Epsom salt bath), reducing sugar consumption and limiting or avoiding caffeine after 2 pm (stimulants) — all helpful tips for getting a good night’s sleep and feeling rested enough to take on the next day.
2. Daily movement & exercise. Moving every single day, even if it’s just for 20 minutes is key to a healthy lifestyle. There is a lot of misconception that exercise needs to be high intensity for it to be effective. Research has shown that moderate-intensity is best for overall health, especially for immune health and to decrease inflammation. Mixing your exercise routine up in regards to the types of exercise is also important (e.g., yoga, outdoor hikes/walking in nature (very grounding!), weight training, HITT classes, cardio, etc.). That being said, whatever gets you excited to move your body and leaves you feeling empowered post workout is my top suggestion as it’s what will make this healthy lifestyle habit one that you look forward to and will prioritize.
3. Balance your hormones with the nutrients they need to thrive. If you are feeling not quite like yourself showing up as mood swings/irritability/anxiety/depression, bloating, continuous fatigue, acne, PMS symptoms, low sex drive, brittle and dry hair and skin… you likely have a hormonal imbalance. These key messengers for the body are critical to you looking and feeling your best. And, despite your best effort to do all that you think will help get you back on track such as drinking your green juices, exercising, reducing salt intake (bloating), etc. — if you don’t get to the root cause — balancing your hormones, you will have great difficulty getting back to feeling energized and radiant. If you’re suffering from PMS and/or on hormonal birth control, you are likely in need of key nutrients to get your hormones humming again. Our Top Up Tonic gives you the 18 key nutrients that women in their reproductive years need. And, if you are concerned, you can always go see a naturopathic doctor who specializes in women’s health to get your hormones tested and to and to investigate further (e.g., Dutch test).
4. Eating more alkaline-based foods (e.g., anti-inflammatory foods). Inflammation, which is often caused by acidic internal environments, is the root cause of so many diseases, chronic pain and premature aging. For this reason, I put a lot of weight on this lifestyle habit (which is easily controlled). You can start by beginning your day with lemon water upon waking (juice from ½ of a lemon + ½ L of filtered water); adding a green smoothie to your daily diet; and/or adding a big leafy (organic) green salad to your diet. For smoothies, something as simple as filtered water, organic kale, pineapple, green apple and ginger thrown into a high-speed blender can be refreshing, alkalizing and delicious! You can also supercharge with a daily dose of chlorophyll (I add chlorophyll drops to my water) and incorporate a few anti-inflammatory supplements such as turmeric (I take liposomal turmeric by Apex Energetics) and Moringa Leaf (I take Prairie Natural’s Moringa Leaf capsules) on a daily basis.
5. Human connection. Get off our phones/screens (which are also stimulants for the brain) and schedule time for fun, hobbies and time with friends & family. This nurtures your soul, decreases stress levels AND in turn, boosts your immune system. If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, it’s the importance of human connection and feeling a part of a community.
6. Limiting daily intake of caffeine and sugar (stimulants). Decreasing caffeine and sugar is one the quickest ways to feel more grounded, yet energized. Anxiety is on the rise and limiting caffeine is a helpful way to reduce it. If people don’t want to decrease caffeine, ensuring it’s not consumed on an empty stomach is helpful to buffer the impact/decrease the jitters. If you can switch to a nice matcha mylk (non-dairy) latte or organic green/white teas — you will not only get a little pep in your step from the caffeine but also get a nice dose of antioxidants.

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

I believe that a lot of disease begins with emotional distress so I would start a self-help movement to get people to operate and make all of their decisions from a place of love (for themselves and each other) versus fear. By developing a global environment where people are celebrated and valued for being their most authentic selves, we would liberate individuals to utilize their unique gifts and to live a life filled with purpose — creating a sense of individual contentment and gratitude while also helping to heal the world at large.

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

I gave a bonus one! Here are six:

• It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Be sure to carve out part of your day as sacred time to exercise and stay healthy. The entrepreneurial journey is intense (as well as very rewarding!) and you need your health to make it to the finish line. Like a professional athlete, you will not perform at your best (or keep your passion for your vision) if you don’t take care of your body. Having learned first-hand by burning myself out with my first business, with my second company (Hello.Me), I am better at protecting my health. I block 2 hours out of morning to ensure that I have the opportunity to exercise and to get ready for my day, on my terms. And when I need a personal day to reset and rest, I take it (and don’t feel guilty). In the end, this is better for everyone. Others are investing in you, you need to invest in your long-term health to succeed.
• You will never please everyone in business (or in life!). As a leader and/or visionary who is trying to forge a new path, you are certain to be met with challenging situations and personalities that you have to deal with. And, not all of the individuals will end up liking you. That is ok. You’re the one who has to go to bed at night at peace with yourself — knowing that you have acted in good faith and with the best intentions for your employees, customers and investors. As my brother said to me a few years ago (when I was dreading a very difficult but necessary business conversation): “there are over 7 billion people in the world. If one or two don’t like you, you’ll be just fine”. I often remind myself of this when I have to manage a conflict in business.
• Pay attention to the early red flags & always follow your intuition. When it comes to raising capital and/or negotiating big agreements, people tend to show their colors quite fast (e.g., in the way that they deal with you). Take note of any major red flags in the early days — as if they are showing up at this stage, there is a high probability that they become a long-term problem. And this can change the entrepreneurial journey for you. I no longer let anyone with capital invest in my company — it has to be a strong fit. When I’m raising capital, I pay a lot of attention to people’s energy and their belief in my vision; the investor’s reputation with prior founders; and I follow my intuition. If my ‘gut’ check says no, I don’t bring them into the business.
• Find & surround yourself with people who inspire you & who you can learn from. For example, people who have been or are doing what you’d love to be doing. Seek these people out (if not obvious) and establish relationships so that they can evolve into mentors. Having seasoned mentors in your field/industry who can provide different perspectives and learnings from their successes and failures is invaluable. I’ve had a few mentors in my career but this was not something that I was taught early on. I think I could have avoided some pitfalls in my early days as an entrepreneur (my first business) if I had a seasoned mentor who was able to help me navigate through the more challenging situations.
• Have compassion. No human is perfect and no start-up is perfect (when it’s close, it’s no longer a start-up!). Show yourself (and others) compassion when mistakes are made. Acknowledge your contribution/mistakes, do what you can to fix the situation and spend the bulk of your energy focusing on the learnings and the path forward (to improve & to avoid the same mistakes in the future). We’re all on a path of evolution and growth in both our careers and personal life. My younger self didn’t show any compassion for my missteps. Over the last many years, I’ve been working to unwind this perfectionist attitude — which has made me more kind to myself (always more work to be done!) and more understanding of other people’s mistakes.
• Don’t invest all of your money into your business & think carefully about whether you should ask/let friends & family invest in your venture. Invest what you can afford to lose (or an amount that doesn’t keep you up at night). I learned this the hard way with my first business 7 years ago. I had never had something that I worked on not be successful; so, I never imagined that forces beyond my control could influence the success of my business. Although I was the pioneer in the space, the company didn’t monetize due to a go-public deal going sideways at the eleventh hour. Second, think very carefully before having family & friends invest. Most will want to support you if they have the financial means (and it’s a wonderful sign of support!). However, I personally found it to be the most stressful element of my first business not working out. Although I lost the most amount of money (and countless hours of blood, sweat and tears!) I felt an enormous amount of responsibility and guilt when the business didn’t sell. To this day, it remains one of the most memorable low periods (mentally) of my life. Thankfully, it didn’t keep me down as Hello.Me would never have been born!

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

I am very passionate about mental health & the mental health epidemic that we are seeing in the world. First, like hormonal health, we need to continue to de-stigmatize anxiety, depression and other mental health illnesses. Second, we need to talk more about mental health so that people don’t feel alone and isolated and are encouraged to openly seek help. Anxiety and depression are so widespread in our society today (especially after 2 years in a pandemic with limited human connection) AND people of all ages are unnecessarily suffering in silence (and from a much younger age than in the past). It’s time for us all to step up to facilitate wide-scale, massive change.

And, if people were in a better mental state, they would have the capacity to do more to heal the environment.

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

Personal Instagram: juliekmcclure

Personal Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliekmcclure

Hello.Me Instagram: hellome.co

Hello.Me TikTok: hellome_co

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

The first thing to remember is that what you’re experiencing is a feeling. And feelings are not facts. Check in with yourself and try to hone in on what you are feeling. Is it nerves? Excitement? Fear? These are all very different than feeling like an imposter.

As a part of our series about how very accomplished leaders were able to succeed despite experiencing Imposter Syndrome, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy Medoff.

After close to three decades of walking the talk in corporate sales, Nancy Medoff, best-selling author, keynote speaker and executive coach has literally “written the book” on women and confidence. Unmute Yourself and Speak Up to Stand Out is a game changer and a call to action for women (and men) who are ready to get their seat at the table — then build a bigger table.

Listed in Forbes before the book was published, #1 new release during pre-sale and #1 at launch. What? How? Wow!

The “Confidence Evangelist”, Nancy is an indoor cycle enthusiast, two-time marathoner, and feet-in-the sand philosopher who won’t stop until women everywhere show up confident, compelling and walk through the doors being opened like they own them. When she’s not traveling for work, you’ll find Nancy enjoying the food and beverage scene in her home town of Boston or beachside on Outer Cape Cod, likely diving into the latest best seller.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

It was a typical corporate meeting and I was sitting around a board room table in Boston, looking over the harbor. As the subject matter expert in the room, I was being asked questions that I was the only one qualified to answer. When trying to respond, I kept being interrupted by my male colleague, and after the third time this happened, I was fuming. I finally looked around the room and dramatically asked; “Am I on mute?” This halted the meeting and stopped the serial offender in his tracks. The floor was turned over to me, I shared my views and we continued on with the discussions.

Oprah talks about ah-ha moments and mine was at that boardroom table that day, being silenced. I’m an extrovert, the youngest of four kids and in my house growing up if you didn’t speak up, you weren’t heard. At that moment I thought to myself, if this was happening to me, what about other women out there who are afraid to speak up? The introverts? The women who won’t raise their hand and allow the world speak to over and silence them? That’s when I knew I had a higher purpose which is to increase the confidence of women globally so they can advocate for themselves or their position. The next step was pretty clear. I left my corporate sales job a few weeks later, founded my company and eventually published my book, Unmute Yourself and Speak Up to Stand Out.

Since then, my mission has taken me all over the world to work with women who need help advocating for themselves. From Boston to Bahrain, Sydney to Singapore, in the boardroom and the classroom I hear the same thing. Women are ready to walk through the doors being opened for them like the own them!

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take away’ you learned from that?

There are soooooooooooo many and what stands out if a story of when I trusted my instincts and made a massive career decision.

I worked in a global sales role for two decades and in doing so was able to travel the world. Multiple trips to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Canada and of course all over the U.S. I thrive on calculated risk taking and love love love global travel so it was way out of character for me to say “no” when asked if I would move overseas to lead our global sales offices in Asia.

The job seemed perfect at the time. I was single, I loved to travel, I adore Asia and dreamed of living in Hong Kong — this was my career dreams coming to life right in front of my eyes. But in peeling back the layers of the role; the teams, the nuances of the culture, the personal sacrifice, the tradeoffs and the likelihood of success — it just wasn’t a good fit for me at the time.

I was terrified to tell my SVP that I was declining the offer — I mean really scared. I was asking anyone and everyone for their opinion. Random strangers on the flight back, the flight attendants, my seat mate, even the driver who picked me up at the airport to bring me home.

They all agreed. Bad idea.

So I got some rest, then gathered the courage to speak up. I called the Senior Executive who wanted me to do this, laid it out for him, shared my thoughts on what I had learned about the role, the country, the culture, in essence the realities of the job and politely and sincerely declined. He was not angry at all and in fact he truly valued the feedback and moved forward with my recommendation on another candidate for the role.

The lesson here? It’s simple and one we need to follow more often. ALWAYS GO WITH YOUR INSTINCTS. You always know what’s best.

Many times, the stories you tell yourself in your head about anticipated outcomes are rarely the way things turn out. I was terrified to turn down this job and my boss was grateful for the information, appreciated my perspective and impressed that I had the courage to say no.

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

At my company, we walk the talk — and in my opinion that’s a deal breaker. Some people in my space talk about empowerment; I provide actionable tools for women to take their careers to the next level and start getting what they want and deserve at work. I’m a straight shooter and help women to raise their game at every stage of their career. Some find their unicorn job, negotiate a higher salary, or leapfrog up the corporate ladder. Others successfully change careers, dive into their next chapter or simply level up their own leadership style. From CEO to recent college graduate, the women I work with all have one thing in common: they gain the confidence and skills needed to truly thrive at work.

All of this, all of my success as a female entrepreneur goes back to the day, I decided to own who I am, step into my strengths and truly follow my passion. Everyone deserves this.

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?

For sure. In this case It’s a particular group of people for whom I am forever grateful; my Personal Board of Directors. It’s important to note here that what I’m referring to is not my tribe, my squad or my friends. My Personal BOD aren’t the people I go to when I want to feel good about myself, celebrate or even commiserate. My BOD has been curated over the years from colleagues and acquaintances. They have a vested interest in my success, they don’t all work for the same company and most importantly, they are direct and honest with me, even if it’s something I don’t want to hear.

I’ll share an example here from my own twenty-five years in corporate sales.

I was moving up the ladder at the company and had applied for a few positions for which I was not selected. I was frustrated and I considered leaving. I did not feel comfortable sharing my frustration with my boss, so I went to my Personal Board of Directors. I’ll never forget when Alan, a member of my BOD looked at me and said point blank “Our company pre-selects for open positions which is unfortunate. I support your decision to leave.” That comment hit me between the eyes for a few reasons. First, he validated what I thought was happening and that I was not getting these roles because I was not being considered in the first place. Then, his comment gave me permission and support to consider leaving, which was unheard of in my organization. Last, he was factual and unemotional, which removed the fear and anxiety out of the situation, which in turn allowed me to consider this decision objectively. I did not end up leaving at the time, and instead I made sure before applying for a position that the hiring manager was indeed considering all qualified candidates.

Think about how much time and energy this one interaction saved me. That’s the power of your Personal Board of Directors.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the experience of Impostor Syndrome. How would you define Impostor Syndrome? What do people with Imposter Syndrome feel?

I’ve been researching the confidence crisis for close to a decade and the concept of Imposter Syndrome has changed in recent years. We are using this term as a catch call for anxiety, fear, lack of confidence or simple nerves. There’s a big difference and I’ll drill it down here.

I can lack confidence at a particular moment in time, but still know I deserve to be there. I earned my seat at the table and I am the expert. Again, I’m not sure that I can DO it, but I know that I did what it took to get there. I don’t feel like an imposter per se, but I am not 100% confident that I can achieve the task.

Another important clarification is the myth that Imposter Syndrome only happens with women. This is simply not true. Men feel the same way. They second guess their qualifications; they lack confidence but they do it anyway. Allowing our lack of confidence to impact our actions is what is holding women back at work.

What are the downsides of Impostor Syndrome? How can it limit people?

Again, let’s make sure we are talking about feeling like an imposter versus lacking confidence — big difference. Feeling like an imposter and letting this feeling impact your actions is the number 1 career derailer. Feelings are not facts. Feelings are feelings. And you can experience them while at the same time taking action.

How can the experience of Impostor Syndrome impact how one treats others?

I believe it’s our responsibility to Amplify women. We know that Imposter Syndrome impedes women from speaking up, raising their hand and taking calculated risk. We all need to step up and Amplify what women are saying, their ideas, their input. It’s our responsibility, all of us. And it’s as simple as incorporating a few tactics like I list here.

“If we can go back to what Bonnie was saying, she had a great point and I’m not sure we all heard…”

“Hang on just a second — Jenny was talking and I’d like to hear what she has to say”

“That’s an excellent idea, Frank — I know Mary surfaced this last week so let’s get her opinion here before we get too far down this path”

We would love to hear your story about your experience with Impostor Syndrome. Would you be able to share that with us?

It’s important to note here that Imposter Syndrome happens to everyone. Everyone. Men, women, experts, rookies, everyone. And every day. Any time I’m getting ready to speak before a large crowd, there’s a quick moment where I become super nervous. Every time! And I’m a confidence evangelist! The key here is to know that it happens, use your proven tactics to overcome this, and do it anyway. Just like the men do.

Did you ever shake the feeling off? If yes, what have you done to mitigate it or eliminate it?

I promise you that simply knowing that you are not alone in how you feel will make a huge difference. I take this nervous feeling and translate it into nervous energy which in turn translates into excitement and then I step into THAT feeling. Turning the nervous feeling into excited energy. This is the key.

In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone who is experiencing Impostor Syndrome can take to move forward despite feeling like an “Impostor”? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. The first thing to remember is that what you’re experiencing is a feeling. And feelings are not facts. Check in with yourself and try to hone in on what you are feeling. Is it nerves? Excitement? Fear? These are all very different than feeling like an imposter.
2. Remember that this happens to everyone and is totally normal. J.Lo, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, all of these women have talked about feeling less than and that they didn’t deserve their spot at the table.
3. Turn your nerves into energy. Excited energy is contagious!
4. Think back to a time where you felt like this and then nailed it. This works for me every time. I visualize my largest speaking gig and all of the people who lined up to speak with me afterwards. That visual image pumps me full of endorphins every time.
5. The last step is my favorite and it’s really just one word. Grace. Rather than beat yourself up when you’re already feeling off, allow yourself some grace to honor those feelings and then take the steps needed to overcome the feeling, step into your power then crush whatever is in front of you!

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. 🙂

If more women could truly step into their strengths, truly believe that they can do what they love to do and only what they love to do all day (and get paid for doing it) think about how much better the world would be. We would have a workforce of thriving people, sharing their strengths and their passions with the world. I believe this can truly change the world. Think about it. A world where people who are working in medicine, are working in medicine because THEY LOVE IT. A world where people who are working in the athletic industry are working in the athletic industry BECAUSE THEY LVOE IT. Childcare, the service industry, accounting, you name it! The whole world would be humming and the possibilities are endless.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

Amy Porterfield. She’s a massive success in her field, she freely shares her knowledge with her community and she also shares her struggles (including Imposter Syndrome) so that others know they are not alone. It takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable like that and I admire her greatly for putting her whole self out there. She offers plenty of free tools and programs so that others can learn from her expertise, and in doing so is elevating all of us.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancymedoff/

https://www.instagram.com/nancy_medoff/

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

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Nancy Medoff: How To Thrive Despite Experiencing Impostor Syndrome was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Melina Baxter of Shaklee On the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Make sure to move. In the world of commuting from the bedroom to the dining room table home office, it’s easy to get sedentary. Make sure to schedule time in your day to get up and out: whether it’s a workout class, a run or just walking around the neighborhood, schedule it like you would an important meeting and make it a priority for yourself.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melina Baxter, Chief Marketing Office at Shaklee.

Melina is a marketer, mom and multitasker. As a working mom, she’s more aware of the challenges and wanted to pitch in to help make it easier for the next generation of moms. She always has a passing for bringing great products to parents and their kids but helping make better and superior supplements was her dream job. She wanted to make this world a better place for her two sons, solving the problem for mom fits the bill.

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?

Absolutely! I’m a marketer by trade; I’m passionate about products and brands that resonate with me personally, so I’ve had a really fun career working across beauty, fashion, retail, tech and now, wellness. My real job is being the mother to two little boys, which has been my best adventure yet. Speaking of adventures, I have a severe case of wanderlust, so I take every chance I can to explore new places near and far. San Francisco is where I call home.

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?

My career path reflects my desire to constantly learn and grow. I’ve expanded on my experience with every job, adding new skills rather than just sharpening existing ones — it’s because of that that I can contribute to the business in different ways. I encourage people to push past their comfort zone to broaden their impact. In the middle of my career in marketing, I pivoted and spent 3 years focusing on Public Relations. That experience made me a better marketer. Go outside your comfort zone at least once in your career to learn how to do your job better.

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

I assumed that if I just worked really hard and did everything well, that my career progression would naturally come. That doesn’t just happen — you have to vocalize what you want (a raisea promotion), chart the path and make a plan. You have to advocate for yourself — this can be particularly hard for women. That includes sharing your goals and intentions with your manager, tracking your successes, and making sure you’re adding value to your team and company. Coming up against internal challenges or a wall? Find a way to move around it. As long as you’re learning, stay. Once you stop learning, it’s time to move.

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?

I feel an immense sense of responsibility working in the health and wellness space. The products we develop have a direct impact on people’s well-being. Ensuring that we’re bringing to market safe, clean, scientifically proven, quality products is our priority, but we also need to balance that with our larger global and environmental commitment along the entire supply chain.

If I do my job well, I’m helping our customer’s health and the health of the planet — it’s an honor to be able to make that impact daily.

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

1. Time is your most precious resource: You cannot get it back, use it wisely and be efficient. There is a reason that the “this could have been an email” thing is a thing!
2. Not everything is equally weighted. Know what things mission-critical and which things can survive a reschedule or really don’t need your involvement.
3. Outsource what you can!! If you can afford to get help, get it. If someone offers to help out, say yes. Can’t deal with dinner tonight, order in. Don’t feel bad about any of it!
4. Setting boundaries is Ok. I’m a better mother, friend, colleague when I’ve had time to rest and reset. That can be no-meeting blocks on your calendar or not checking emails at night (and being ok with it).
5. Make sure to move. In the world of commuting from the bedroom to the dining room table home office, it’s easy to get sedentary. Make sure to schedule time in your day to get up and out: whether it’s a workout class, a run or just walking around the neighborhood, schedule it like you would an important meeting and make it a priority for yourself.

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

I love the idea of bringing people together via wellness experiences — the best way to bring our mission to the world is to get people actively experiencing what it feels like to be healthy. If we can connect children and parents, families and communities through healthy activities like yoga and meditation or healthy eating, we’ll teach healthy habits. That leads to healthy action. We started a free program called Wellness Wednesday to do just that — build connection and community around wellness activities available to all.

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

1. Sometimes the best way forward in your career is to go sideways. Learn as many different skills as you can and be as broad and general as you can. The more you know about a range of things, the more dangerous you are.
2. If no one else is taking charge or leading a project — STEP UP and own it! That’s your opportunity to break out.
3. When experiencing issues at work, don’t only bring the problems to your boss, bring possible solutions as well. This shows resourcefulness and maturity.
4. You are curating your resume with every new job — think about the long game.
5. Be the colleague and partner you want to work with — you’ll be surprised how connected your work network is and you want to leave a legacy of being someone people admire and respect.

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

They’re all important topics but the one that unites us all equally is the state of our environment. We are only as healthy as the planet that sustains us. If we can do better for the planet, we can positively impact more people now and in the future.

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

Let’s connect on LinkedIn or Instagram!

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

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

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” I wrote these words on a card and displayed it on my bedroom desk at age 12. It has pushed me through many obstacles in my life journey, and to this day it is still my core belief. It is my dream that through technology everyone can access the financial services that he or she needs. I am working to make that dream come true through Happy Mango.

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

Kate Hao is the Founder and CEO of Happy Mango. She founded Happy Mango to bring greater transparency to credit reporting. Kate’s training in fundamental financial analysis enabled her to develop a forward-looking consumer credit assessment algorithm that lay the foundation of the Happy Mango Score computation.

Kate was previously the Treasurer of the broker-dealer subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, where she worked for over 12 years across various functions. While working as a bond trader during the 2008 crisis, she recognized the limitations of existing consumer credit reporting systems, which provided information about a problem only after the problem has occurred. Her training in fundamental financial analysis enabled her to develop a forward-looking consumer credit assessment algorithm that lay the foundation of the Happy Mango Score computation.

Kate’s executive experience in managing large teams and complex projects ultimately led to her decision to bring her idea forward and form Happy Mango. She earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Accounting from Albion College. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Certified Public Accountant (CPA), and Financial Risk Manager (FRM).

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

Financial service companies pursue wealthy clients because that is where the money is. Meanwhile, according to the Federal Reserve, “40% of Americans do not have $400 in the bank for emergency use.” These individuals need financial services that help them manage, not cash, but cash flows. However, they are often considered too risky or too costly to serve. We believe today’s financial industry is missing a great revenue opportunity. Happy Mango has built an online platform that makes it prudent and profitable to deliver financial products that are uniquely designed for serving the 40%.

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?

Our modern economy is built through creative destruction. I believe every industry will be disrupted and every disruptive force has a positive side and a negative side. Humanity is still adapting to the disruptive force of the Internet. With the power of the Internet, we can deliver affordable loans from a community lender in South of Bronx to anyone who has a smart phone, enable a financial coach in Florida to craft personalized advice for her clients in Colorado, or generate a clear and complete personal financial analysis for anyone who strives to improve her financial health regardless how much money she has in her bank account.

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

I have been truly fortunate to have had many mentors who have positively influenced my life. There are simply not enough words to talk about all the people who have been instrumental to my career. I will talk about my father who has advised and inspired me throughout my life. My father was born in a rural Chinese village to parents neither of whom had spent a single day in school. Yet he became a renowned doctor and the leader of a prestigious medical university. Throughout his career, he always believed he could become better by seeking out insight and inspiration from different people and varied situations. When I started my career at an investment bank, I was disappointed that while others in my peer group got line operation jobs in trading or banking, I was assigned a role in divisional management staff. My father explained what a unique opportunity it was to have a bird’s eye view of the full operation and persuaded me to embrace the role. That broad experience has been instrumental in my current job as the CEO of Happy Mango.

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

Founding a company, championing a new idea is hard for anyone. It is more challenging for women simply because there have been so few women recognized and celebrated as pioneers or disruptors. Even today male founders far outnumber female founders. That said, the number of female founders is growing quickly as we build on the work of the female role models who preceded us. And the women disruptors of today will further inspire and encourage generations of future disruptors among our younger sisters, daughters, and granddaughters.

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

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” I wrote these words on a card and displayed it on my bedroom desk at age 12. It has pushed me through many obstacles in my life journey, and to this day it is still my core belief. It is my dream that through technology everyone can access the financial services that he or she needs. I am working to make that dream come true through Happy Mango.

How can our readers online reach you?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katehao

https://www.happymangocredit.com/

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

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Female Disruptors: Kate Hao of Happy Mango 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.

GenwrightWomen In Wellness: Alice Domar on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

There is competition everywhere. Between colleagues, even if they are good friends, between siblings and other family members, between neighbors and friends. It took me a long time to understand this, especially with my co-workers.

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

Dr. Alice Domar is the Executive Director of the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health and a pioneer in the application of mind/body medicine to women’s health issues. She established the first Mind/Body Center for Women’s Health in the country.

Dr. Domar conducts ongoing ground-breaking research that focuses on the relationship between stress and different women’s health conditions — and actively creates innovative programs that help women to decrease the physical and psychological symptoms associated with infertility. She has conducted research on infertility, breast cancer, menopausal symptoms, ovarian cancer, and premenstrual syndrome — and has earned an international reputation as one of the country’s top women’s health experts.

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

I am the child of European immigrants, both of whom came to the U.S. in their early 20’s and both received their education here. My mom was a social worker, and my dad was an economics professor at MIT. I like to think I am a combo of the therapist from my mom and the scientist from my dad. I have always been fascinated by medicine; not so interested in the physiology, but more the psychology of illness. I earned a Ph.D. in health psychology, majoring in OB/GYN and because my parents struggled to conceive both my sister and me, I was fascinated by the mind/body connection in infertility and have dedicated my career to understanding the stress and infertility connection.

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

I treated a patient who had been experiencing infertility for years and had gone through every treatment possible. Although she was young, her egg quality was poor and thus she didn’t make healthy-looking or normal embryos. I started seeing her for weekly counseling because she was very depressed and anxious; she was also facing huge family challenges. As time went on, she became far less distressed. She had only two embryos left, and it was her last chance. Her physician told me that he was only allowing her to do a treatment cycle so that I wouldn’t get mad at him and guess what? She completed the cycle, conceived twins, and now has two perfect babies. She took a picture of me holding the twins when they were about four months old, and I have it taped to my computer, so I see it constantly and it gives me hope for every patient I see. So, the takeaway? Miracles happen, and it is a tiny bit of evidence (or actually two tiny bits of evidence) that stress relief can increase fertility. That is one reason why I am supporting FertilityOutLoud.com, where patients can seek help from a fertility specialist, find out information about costs and insurance coverage, and get advice from a community of others who are struggling with infertility. FertilityOutLoud.com also just launched new resources for the holiday season for patients and their loved ones on how to deal with insensitive comments from friends and family surrounding fertility.

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?

Early in my career a woman called me and told me that she had just been diagnosed with early-stage uterine cancer and had been advised to undergo a hysterectomy, but that she didn’t want surgery and wanted to come see me to help her “meditate her cancer away”. I knew that a hysterectomy would likely cure her of her cancer and told her that I couldn’t support her in her quest to take an alternative approach to treatment, so I couldn’t see her as a patient. But later I realized that she surely found someone who agreed to help her use meditation or some other alternative approach, and that not having a hysterectomy likely allowed the cancer to spread to the point where surgery couldn’t cure her. In hindsight, I wish I had agreed to treat her to explore why she was so afraid of the surgery and hopefully teach her the stress management skills so that with my support, she would have considered surgery.

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?

When my dad, the economist, heard that I was going to have a career determining if stress relief would increase pregnancy rates, he said that I would be doing the world a lot more good if I could figure out a way to prevent unplanned pregnancy, not trying to help people get pregnant. However, I stuck by my goal of helping patients who were diagnosed with infertility get the emotional support, stress management skills, lifestyle advice, and counseling which could increase their chance of conceiving. I have worked directly with thousands of patients (and thus far there are nine babies named Ali after me, plus one dog), and indirectly tens of thousands more from the professional trainings I do and the books I have written. All the research I have done has shown the same thing women who participate in a mind/body-based intervention experience pregnancy rates anywhere from two to four times the rate of women who do not participate. I am helping to spread the knowledge that infertility is a disease and there are incredible resources available, like Fertility Out Loud which may contribute to better physical and emotional health and potentially cause higher pregnancy rates as a result. I encourage anyone struggling on this journey to visit Fertility Out Loud for more resources and tips to support their mental health, specifically as we prepare to gather with loved ones this holiday season who may in fact ask those well-meaning questions about your fertility. For those looking to join a community, Fertility Out Loud is on Instagram and Facebook as well.

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.

Stop treating food as your enemy. There are no “bad” foods. Since we all seem to experience the “what the hell effect” (you don’t allow yourself to eat anything sweet for days, then give in to temptation and eat a cookie, and then since you have already broken your diet, you say what the hell to yourself, and eat a bag of cookies). This is why we teach the 80/20 plan. If 80% of what you eat is the good stuff (fruits and veggies, whole grains, lean meat and fish, a more plant-based diet), then the other 20% can be what you crave. So, the cookie is your 20%; not feeling guilty about it and not forbidding favorite foods will likely allow you to not eat the whole bag.

Think of exercise in a different way. Exercise should not be a punishment for eating something “bad” or used to allow yourself to eat something “bad”. Instead, I encourage you to think of exercise as the best possible way to decrease stress and improve your overall health. Walking is the best form of exercise. I keep a pair of sneakers in my office and drag patients for therapy sessions while walking to show them how good they can feel after exercise.

Allow yourself to self-nurture without guilt. Women tend to really struggle with this. We feel guilty doing anything for ourselves and then feel resentment when others don’t take care of us. Every morning, when you wake up, think of one nice thing you can do for yourself that day. Without guilt. I was on a book tour years ago and woke up in Los Angeles. I realized that I was a couple of blocks away from their farmer’s market (I lived in LA as a kid and loved going there). It was January and it occurred to me that there would be fresh fruit there, so I planned which kind of fruit I would buy, and I bought a box of blackberries and ate every single one.

Goof off. Guilt free. We can’t be thinking and doing and looking at devices all day. Read a juicy novel (my patients loved the Shades of Grey series), watch something you love on TV, or listen to your favorite music and dance — I recommend U2.

Hang out with friends. Social support is crucial to our mental and physical health. COVID-19 has had an awful impact on people’s abilities to see friends and connect with others. The definition of social support is trusting someone enough to confide in them. People who are lonely are as likely to die prematurely, as do people who smoke. Prioritize time with friends on the same level as taking care of others.

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

That’s exactly it — movement! Exercise is the single best thing one can do for their health. It is effective in treating/preventing depression and anxiety, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, etc. If any of us could invent a pill which does everything that exercise does, and if that pill was basically free and had no side effects, we would be richer than Bill Gates.

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

Not everyone will support you. Even mentors can be competitive.

People will say bad things about you and all you can do is stay true to your morals and ethics. Always be honest and do the right thing. Be nice.

You can’t be perfect in everything you do. Choose what is important to you and let some other things slide. I prioritize my kids, my husband, and my job. The house? Not so much. Clothing/fashion? Nope.

Moms who work outside the home and stay at home moms don’t always see eye to eye. I still don’t understand the competition/hostility between the two camps, but I feel proud that I have good friends from both, however that doesn’t mean I haven’t been painfully ignored at many soccer and softball games.

There is competition everywhere. Between colleagues, even if they are good friends, between siblings and other family members, between neighbors and friends. It took me a long time to understand this, especially with my co-workers.

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

Mental health is my number one concern. As a psychologist, I have seen a dramatic increase in the need for counseling across all sectors of humanity increasingly since the pandemic started. Our calls have tripled since then. Depression and anxiety are their own epidemic now.

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

Good question! I am not much of a social media person; hard to be as a mental health professional. I have a website www.dralicedomar.com which my older daughter is helping me update! I’ve also partnered with Fertility Out Loud to share some tips related to the connection between mental health and infertility on Instagram.

Thank you for these fantastic insights!

My pleasure!

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GenwrightWomen In Wellness: Alice Domar on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dave Hargett of Innovative CBD: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Just keep it simple and do on to others as you would want done onto you. Stay honest and transparent at all cost. we all need to work together to make this industry more respectable and enjoyable for all.

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

David Hargett founded Innovative Nutraceuticals, LLC in 2013 but has changed the entity to Innovative PR, LLC which is an Act 73 company as of October 2019 in Puerto Rico and currently serves as the President and CEO of the company. Innovative PR produces pure, solvent-free Hemp Oil for use in the medical and wellness industries with a focus on organic alternative medicine. Innovative PR, LLC owns a number of elite brands including Innovative CBD ®. These brands represent Innovative’s internationally recognized food grade and medical grade products. Innovative PR produces the highest quality Hemp products in a variety of forms that include tinctures, capsules, salves and topicals.

A pioneer in the industry, David has designed and built a supercritical C02 extraction machine, which extracts pure, organic cannabinoids from industrial hemp grown on his own farm in California with-out the use of any hydrocarbon solvents.

David’s past entrepreneurship endeavors include ownership of the profitable nursery, SoCal Cuts. David is also a lecturer at the Cannabis Career Institute, Cannabis and Hemp Association and the Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition as an expert of the standards and requirements of extraction.

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

I had invented my own C02 extraction machine for cannabis extractions and while doing so the girl I was currently dating had one of her daughters recently diagnosed with epilepsy. Hemp was currently illegal in the United States as it was 2013 so I flew to Spain to buy a farm and import hemp legally through the Federal Controlled Substance act so I could make CBD rich hemp oils to help treat her daughters seizures.

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?

In 2017 My company had had numerous shipments of Hemp seized from Customs and border protection claiming it was illegal to import. I then hired a team of lawyers and filed a class action lawsuit against Jeff Sessions “attorney general” and CBP for unlawful seizure and destruction of property. After 3 years my company won a $350,000 settlement and my seized Hemp was released to me. I learned that even when you try to do things legally the Government will still try to claim hemp is illegal and you have to really fight to prove your innocence. My business had done everything correct to import and had successful imports so the seizure made no sense to my legal time and when the government gets involved and says its illegal there is not much a person can do. Thankfully we fought the system and won which not sets case law for anyone importing hemp in the future.

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

I would have to my funniest mistake was thinking it would be easy to start a CBD business and sell to mass market. I had to learn how difficult it really is to get your brand on store shelves and maintain market share with so much competition.

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

Innovative is currently building out a USDA Organic Certified Farm in Canovanas Puerto Rico. This new project will allow us to hire more people and bring organic CBD hemp products to our customers. We will also grow other organic produce to donate to the local community and churches in need.

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?

I am very grateful for my attorney Michael Chernis in Santa Monica California. I would have wild ideas about what I wanted to do with my business and he was always there to help me put together the proper contracts and to make sure everything we did followed federal law.

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

Marketing in the CBD business is very difficult because the world we are living in people think cheap and more is better and that’s just not the case with CBD. Innovative is stall navigating the CBD marketing space trying to figure out what works beast and for s it has always been to be transparent with our consumers and showcase customer reviews and let them help us build consumer confidence.

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

Adoption of CBD and cannabis worldwide, federal banking coming soon “hopefully” More consumers becoming aware of the amazing health benefits from cannabis and hemp. What concerns me is too much regulation of a natural product. FDA classifying CBD as a drug. Large scale manufactures mass producing Hemp products and consumers thinking all CBD is the same.

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

1- difficulty selling to mass market. Finding and hiring a sales team to sell in all 50 states is extremely challenging when you don’t currently know anything about selling to brick and motor stores. Thankfully my team was built from one person who tried my product and with his knowledge of the mass market industry he landed me sales reps in all 50 states and is currently my largest wholesale broker. 2- what is legal one day may not be the next. We have sold in states like Texas and Missouri for 1–2 years with no problem then all of a sudden we receive a call from a health food store saying there government made cbd illegal and they wanted to return all products. After a few months the government reversed their decision and it was business as usual. 3- be prepared to spend more then you ever imagined in legal fees keeping your business legal in all markets you plan to peruse. Every state has their own laws regarding cbd and they can very drastically from CBD percentage to labeling and things can change in an instant and all of a sudden, the product on store shelves could need a recall because of a label change requirement. 4- the competition can be fierce and will do just about anything to gain market share. When we first started in mass market Innovative was competing with 3–4 other brands then as CBD started to gain traction with consumers more brands started popping up and mostly were white label products and they would give stores free products just to get on the shelf. This made it very difficult to complete as our product has a higher price point do to the unique oil manufacturing process proprietary to innovative but consumers at the time were mainly focused on price not knowing they were purchasing an inferior product. 5- I wish I knew how unpredictable the CBD and Cannabis market can be. One day things can be going great and the next things completely slow down. The market has many ups and downs that have been tricky to navigate and predict.

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

Be honest with consumers about the product you are manufacturing and selling. Its going to be a lot of work but the reward is priceless when you change someone’s life with your products.

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. 🙂

Just keep it simple and do on to others as you would want done onto you. Stay honest and transparent at all cost. we all need to work together to make this industry more respectable and enjoyable for all.

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

InnovativeCBD.com and Innovative CBD on YouTube, twitter, IG and FB.

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

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

Billy Kim Of 5to9 Wellness: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Lack of Regulation in the CBD industry — This was quite the shock for me to realize there were a lot of shady companies out there taking advantage of this, especially after having worked in a highly regulated pharmaceutical industry. It’s a bit of an honor system to uphold good manufacturing practices and do proper quality control and testing on your products, but it’s something that everybody should strive for to push the industry forward. Plus, consumers are getting smarter about recognizing trustworthy brands that can demonstrate this commitment.

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

Billy graduated with a BS in Neuroscience from Duke and a Joint Master’s in Translational Medicine from UC Berkeley and UCSF. Prior to founding 5to9 Wellness, Billy was a commercial strategy consultant serving big pharma and biotech clients, and previously worked as a research assistant in esteemed molecular biology and biochemistry labs at Duke and Scripps Research.

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

I’ve actually always wanted to start my own business, and I finally made the leap after coming up with a business idea that I was passionate about.

I quit my job working as a consultant for big pharma clients to promote plant-based wellness instead. When it comes to our daily health and wellness, pharmaceuticals leave a gap that I believe herbal remedies could help cover. I was guided by the scientific evidence.

I have always had a passion for science and its betterment of society, and was trained as a scientist in biomedical research labs before my pharma gig. Having always been an avid user of herbal supplements as well, I kept close track of the scientific literature surrounding plant remedies and noticed an explosion of compelling research in just the past decade supporting their health benefits. Though these benefits have been known since ancient times, it seemed like forgotten knowledge in the modern world.

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?

In the very early stages of building the business, my original herbal wellness product idea actually did not include any CBD. What happened was: I knew a cannabis entrepreneur who invited me to move to St. Louis so that he could provide some mentorship and resources like R&D lab space for my original idea. However, while working day to day in a shared space, I realized the stuff that he was working on was truly revolutionary. They were leveraging pharmaceutical grade technology and manufacturing expertise to develop multiple patents involved with cannabis product development. I was so amazed that I actually ended up briefly putting my own project on hold in order to help his business out and learn more about the cannabis industry.

I’m actually now licensing some of the aforementioned technology to manufacture our herbal tincture Mind Unwind. Because of my little venture into the cannabis industry, I learned to create an even better product than what I had originally planned. It just goes to show that an entrepreneur’s journey can be quite windy!

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

I accidentally spelled “green tea” incorrectly on the first set of Mind Unwind’s box packaging. Because the font was so small where the word is used, it took me weeks to notice. I first started selling Mind Unwind at the local farmer’s market before launching online, and I’m pretty sure every customer from the market bought my product with this typo on it. I’m definitely more careful now with reviewing art files for packaging and labels, but I think this also had to do with my tendency to overwork myself and not get enough sleep. I need to remind myself trying to be hyperproductive can actually be counterproductive if you aren’t getting proper rest and your brain isn’t functioning optimally!

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

We’ve recently launched with our debut product: Mind Unwind. It’s an advanced herbal concentrate containing CBD, Lion’s Mane Extract, and L-theanine. All three of these plant ingredients have unique biological mechanisms that can help people with anxiety, pain, sleep, and more. In addition to having this amazing blend of herbal compounds, we utilize a new cutting-edge technology to make it water-soluble. This means that it can be mixed into drinks (unlike CBD oil) and starts working within minutes due to the much higher bioavailability.

Nothing else like Mind Unwind exists, and it was quite technically challenging to develop. I certainly think that all that extra R&D work was worth it — I’m convinced Mind Unwind is one of the most effective CBD wellness products on the market. Not just my own words, but also what I’m regularly told by customers!

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?

There’s multiple people:

There is obviously the cannabis entrepreneur I mentioned earlier who provided me with the resources that helped get my business where it’s at today. His support has helped me build a strong foundation to get my business off the ground. I can only hope to pay it forward one day if I also find myself in a position to guide younger entrepreneurs.

I also need to thank my parents, who were open-minded and trusting enough of me to quit a career with a good trajectory and build a hemp-related business. Being that they had always been pretty conservative when it comes to cannabis, I appreciate that they did research on CBD health benefits enough to see it in a positive light.

Lastly I need to thank my good friend from college and now business partner Mike. He quit his job to work on his own set of hustles, but still enthusiastically agreed to help me build 5to9 Wellness. I feel like I would have gone crazy from stress and overworking had he not joined the team. It’s also been valuable for me to have a highly competent colleague to bounce ideas off of and help me make tough decisions.

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

When it comes to CBD Ecommerce brands, I feel like everybody needs to be a little creative due to all the advertising restrictions for CBD. The approach we are investing most heavily into is creating bite-sized educational content via social media content or blog posts — an indirect way of creating brand awareness, but more importantly to gain the trust of our potential consumers as an intellectual authority. We’ve posted educational bits about CBD and our other herbal ingredients, as well as the research and biology behind mind and body wellness in general. People really appreciate this type of content and it’s helped us gain our first 2k instagram followers within just a few weeks!

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

Exciting:

Rapid growth and no signs of slowing down

More legalization in the US and around the world.

New innovations providing higher quality products

Concerning

Federally illegal

CBD products being sold in gas stations, which include a lot of crap products that tarnish the value of CBD

On the flip side — The market prices for Premium CBD products such as ours might not be the most financially accessible to many Americans. In the pharma world, patient access programs are standard across drug companies to help the underprivileged pay for their treatments. I’m hoping to one day figure out how to implement a system like this for 5to9!

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

Lack of Regulation in the CBD industry

This was quite the shock for me to realize there were a lot of shady companies out there taking advantage of this, especially after having worked in a highly regulated pharmaceutical industry. It’s a bit of an honor system to uphold good manufacturing practices and do proper quality control and testing on your products, but it’s something that everybody should strive for to push the industry forward. Plus, consumers are getting smarter about recognizing trustworthy brands that can demonstrate this commitment.

Education is important — There’s still a lot of learning to be done by consumers!

We’ve come a long way as a society in accepting cannabis and hemp as having legitimate therapeutic uses, but people still have a lot to learn. When I was selling Mind Unwind at the farmer’s market, I had many more people than expected ask me if CBD would get them high (it will not). I also found that many of those I spoke with who had taken CBD products before couldn’t recall what doses they’ve tried!

Advertising will be tricky

There’s a lot of restrictions with online advertising when selling an ingestible CBD product. There are workarounds, some riskier than others. Keep yourself up to date on the policies on Facebook and Instagram to keep your ad accounts from being suspended or disabled. Also, know that even when you are compliant you might still get flagged and have to deal with an annoying appeal process.

Banking will be tricky

If you try to open up a business bank account at any major bank, you’ll get turned away as soon as you mention hemp or CBD. Also, only a handful of payment processors will want to work with you.

Not all 3rd Party Testing labs are equal

We get all our batches tested for quality and safety measures by a third party lab, and publish their data on our website for transparency. However, it can take time to find the right partner. Testing results can vary considerably depending on the lab, and some labs can be completely unreliable. We had to learn this the hard way.

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

N/A. I don’t have enough experience with employees yet to speak on this.

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. 🙂

In general, I think everybody should strive to be more open-minded with different people or ideas. The world isn’t as black and white as much as people make it out to be, but it’s easier for us to think in those terms. Our brain is biologically wired to take mental shortcuts for processing efficiency. It’s easy to label and be quick to judge, but a commitment to learn and understand will be better for the growth of your spirit and your intellect.

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

Definitely our instagram! @5to9.wellness

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

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Billy Kim Of 5to9 Wellness: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.