Category: Featured

Women In Wellness: Jennifer Blair of Deka Lash On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Give back to the Community: My way of giving back to the community are the organizations we support through Deka Lash. One of them is One Love Foundation, which empowers young people with the tools and resources they need to recognize the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships and bring life-saving prevention education to their communities. Find a cause that’s meaningful to you, and make some time to give back locally.

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

Jennifer Blair is the Founder and Co-CEO of Deka Lash, an emerging tech-beauty franchise that specializes in eyelash extensions. Because of her love for family, she combined the names of her daughters, Demi and Karli, to come up with the name Deka Lash. Jennifer is a champion of unapologetic self-confidence and uses her expertise in the world of beauty and business to help others reach their full potential.

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?

As a child, I grew up spending much of my time in my mother’s hair salon outside of Pittsburgh. This is where I first observed and learned the ins-and-outs of the beauty industry. Fast forwarding to adulthood, things came full circle for me. I always felt a strong sense of confidence when I would get a fresh set of eyelash extensions, and when I discovered the service was expensive and hard to come by, I set out to make them more accessible for everyone. It all began with a lash certification course, which led to my first one-bed studio in Pittsburgh. After experiencing the demand for lash extensions in my community, and seeing success with my business, I decided to use my knowledge to help others uncover the most confident and empowered version of themselves through Deka Lash.

Since its start in 2012, Deka Lash has evolved into a top-performing eyelash extension studio with more than 100 locations across the U.S. and Canada. The brand is growing rapidly, and we’re expecting to have 140 locations by the end of 2022 and 200 locations by the end of 2023.

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?

When I started lashing, I rented a room out of a salon. I ran a Groupon to see if there would be any interest in women wanting eyelash extensions. I hoped to get 10, maybe 20, people who wanted to buy the service. I still remember being so nervous the day it launched, wondering if anyone would see it. Within two days, Groupon sold out, selling 250 vouchers. This was when I realized there was a demand for the service. I had mixed feelings. I was super excited that so many sold, but, at the same time, I was nervous that so many sold. I was a mom of four and planned on starting this idea much slower. I was a bit overwhelmed and thought about refunding all the Groupons. With some encouraging words from Mike, my husband, and support from my mother in helping with the kids, I went all in and went back to work full time.

After a few weeks of working with clients, I realized I wasn’t just doing lashes. I wasn’t just making women look and feel better; I started feeling better about myself. I enjoyed the reactions and smiles from the clients as much as they loved the lashes.

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

One of the initial mistakes we made when we first started was licensing the brand, instead of franchising. While licensing, we couldn’t control the image, and there was no consistency from studio-to-studio. We knew that we wanted to expand Deka Lash, and the franchise model was ideal in making that happen, so that’s what we did.

When it came to the design of our studios, we definitely learned a lot about what we wanted for Deka Lash through trial and error. If you look at what our studios look like now, compared to what they looked like when we first started, you will see some pretty clear differences. Some of our studios were made up of private rooms where our Lash Artists would apply the lashes. That quickly changed to an open concept feel. We knocked down all the walls because we wanted our environment to be one of collaboration. It’s this type of synergy that has become a pillar of our success and we’ve never looked back. Learning by trial and error is an important part of any entrepreneur’s journey.

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?

Deka Lash focuses a lot on helping build self-confidence through creating customized lashes. But we never tell people that they need our service. We just like to send the message that they are there to help you enhance your natural beauty. Simply put, when you look better, you feel better, when you feel better, you’re more productive, and when you’re more productive, you’re more successful. Now more than ever, self-care is so important, and sometimes the little things, like getting your lashes done and feeling confident when you look in the mirror is all it takes to ensure that you have a productive and meaningful day.

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.

Save Time with Lash Extensions: When it comes to getting ready in the morning, anything we can do to get a little time back matters, and lash extensions do just that! Perfect for everyone, from the tired mom, to the working millennial, lash extensions eliminate the need for mascara, provide a more youthful appearance, and enhance your eyes. The key is that you can throw your hair in a ponytail, still look awake, and feel great when you look in the mirror.

Get Outside: Whether you’re taking a walk, playing with the dog, or going for a quick run to clear your mind, being in nature and taking in the fresh air allows you to find an inner sense of peace and really gather your thoughts. I make it a habit to take breaks, get away from the computer, and re-center.

Focus on Family: Making time for family is, and always will be, a top priority in my life. I’m a mom of four kids and always carve out time in my day to spend with them. Whether it’s an hour, or a full day during the week, it’s key in finding happiness and success.

Make Time For Exercise: Part of feeling good about yourself is creating healthy habits and routines. I prefer Pilates, but, different strokes for different folks. Find a form of exercise that you’re passionate about, make sure it challenges you, and stick with it!

Give back to the Community: My way of giving back to the community are the organizations we support through Deka Lash. One of them is One Love Foundation, which empowers young people with the tools and resources they need to recognize the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships and bring life-saving prevention education to their communities. Find a cause that’s meaningful to you, and make some time to give back locally.

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

The organizational charts really don’t mean anything. One may assume if you own your company or you’re the CEO everyone works for you, when actually it means you work for everyone.

Define your Core Values early on so you can build the right culture. Surround yourself with others who really care about your business and believe in the same core values.

This will not be easy, even if it seems like it now. There will be a lot of highs and lows. Reflect on the highs. That will get you through the lows.

Pressure is a privilege. When you have pressure it forces you to accomplish something. You’re more driven and it removes the laziest. Remind yourself to use that pressure and embrace it to help you get where you want to be.

It’s so important to find the right people to be a part of your business, from the top executives to the lash artists and everyone in between. As the old saying goes, “it takes a village,” and Deka Lash has truly blossomed thanks to the wonderful and talented people that are a part of the brand.

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

Deka Lash has always prioritized sustainability; for example, we have upgraded our packaging to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Our lashes are condensed, which is one way of reducing waste. Something else I am very proud of, is we now donate used lash brushes to Wands for Wildlife, which are used to help soothe animals after wildfires. It’s such a meaningful way for our products to be recycled.

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

You can follow us on our LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook pages. You can also get the very latest on studio openings and product/service launches on our official website, https://dekalash.com/

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

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

Women In Wellness: Maria Juliana Morales of Mind Naturals On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

We couldn’t think about overall wellness without taking into account the wellness of the planet and how we could impact the world. Being part of the beauty industry, this is extremely important as it is highly regarded as a very contaminated industry. To combat this, we always think about developing products that are good for you and for the planet.

As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Maria Juliana Morales.

Maria Juliana Morales is the driving force behind MIND NATURALS.

With a broad brand management background in the beauty and wellness space for companies including L’Oreal and Loto del Sur and as a lifelong enthusiast of the incredible biodiversity of her native Colombia, Maria Juliana helps to bring the richness and vitality of the equatorial rainforest to this skincare collection.

As a featured guest speaker and beauty industry commentator in Colombia and internationally, Maria Juliana looks forward to introducing the energy of Latin American beauty through the MIND NATURALS skincare collections to new audiences all over the world.

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

I’m latina, I was born in Cali, Colombia, very close to the countryside. Being raised in Colombia between the city and the countryside is what inspired me and made me very passionate about nature, its benefits and the results it can bring.

I have a major in design and have had the opportunity to work for global beauty brands, including larger brands and smaller indie brands. I have always been inspired to bring richness to the brands I work with, especially the indie brands while they are still in their growth phase.

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 believe the most interesting process I have been a part of during my career has been developing the Roots Collection for Mind Naturals as it meant to immerse consumers in the most luscious and vibrant ingredients from Colombia.

As I grew up in Cali, in the southwest of Colombia, I was exposed to nature, crops, and citrus plants and really began to understand their benefits. I was constantly amazed by the discovery of all the things that nature can provide. Discovering and sharing Colombia’s biodiversity and story through skincare has been an incredible honor and one of the most fulfilling experiences.

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?

Sometimes between the process of developing the marketing campaigns and assets, we can get lost and miss the essence of our brand.

Through the process we get to analyze all the benchmarks and trends among the beauty and skincare industry, and in some cases this analysis can influence our thinking and change some of our most unique ideas into copies of what’s trending. Therefore the biggest mistake has been to lose a unique idea because it seemed to be very different from the current trends. We would try to adapt our communications to fit the trends and we would forget what actually made us special: our Latiness.

The most important lesson I learned from this is to always stay true to yourself and embrace YOUR stories, even if it means it is different from what’s popular and you may have to educate through your communications with consumers.

We found true fulfillment when we leveraged and embraced our Roots with Mind Naturals — this process has meant everything for the brand.

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?

There are three areas we are focused on at Mind Naturals to help make the world a better place: formulation, sustainability, and community.

Firstly, skincare effectiveness depends on the formulas. For this, we carefully develop formulas with over 97% of natural ingredients, in which every ingredient is selected under the EWG list standards to take care of our users and provide safe products. This also means our formula is paraben, sulfate and phthalates free. As we established these standards, all of our decisions ensure people receive effective and safe formulas.

Second, we couldn’t think about overall wellness without taking into account the wellness of the planet and how we could impact the world. Being part of the beauty industry, this is extremely important as it is highly regarded as a very contaminated industry. To combat this, we always think about developing products that are good for you and for the planet.

We are fully immersed in our sustainability journey, where we always make decisions under a conscious and sustainability mindset. For example, we changed all of our packaging to be sustainable, finding 100% biodegradable packaging that doesn’t leave any impact, or packages made from sugarcane plastic. We won’t stop there — we are constantly looking for new developments in sustainable packaging. We also know the sourcing of our ingredients makes a difference, so we try to locally source most of our ingredients and help to develop local economies.

Third, building community can make a huge difference, as daily habits directly affect people’s lives. At Mind, we wanted to create a greater connection with our users as skincare is such a personal experience — nobody else will do it for you, and it is a self love act. Through all of our communications and rituals we leverage self love and self care, always seeding positive insights and expressing how important personal moments are. We stress the importance of positive thoughts and self-talk, as these thoughts and feelings reflect in our actions toward ourselves and others. That’s the source of real beauty, it all starts in your mind.

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. Create a self care routine that you can easily incorporate into your routine
2. Remember to move your body and remain active
3. Stay curious: read, paint, meditate, or find another hobby to keep your mind active
4. Stay connected to nature — walk barefoot on the grass
5. Disconnect yourself from all tech devices at least 40 minutes before you go to sleep

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

I would start a self-love movement. I believe when you love yourself for your best qualities while also recognizing your flaws, you learn your true self and the care you give yourself improves. This will impact the way you interact with others positively. Additionally, if you love yourself, it can lead to more positive and loving feelings towards your home, community, and planet.

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

• Know the value you bring to every situation that you are in
• Look for ordinary moments in your day that you can make extraordinary
• Ups and downs are part of your personal growth, take in every moment and embrace the joys of success and the learning opportunities of hardships
• Look for opportunities to connect what you do with what you are passionate about
• Most of the answers can be found through observation: stop, watch and listen
• Don’t be afraid to stop and take a few steps back

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 very important to me and has been one of the key causes we have been focusing on at Mind. Our days are defined by the way we think and feel and our daily habits greatly affect our mental health. It is important that we address mental health through awareness, education, and resources.

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

@mindnaturals

www.mindskincare.com

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

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

Women In Wellness: Maggie Qiu of SeabuckWonders On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Go with the flow but have awareness of your limits, physically and mentally. Stress is a much bigger issue nowadays- especially during a pandemic. I joke with my mom friends that we were doing 5 full time jobs at the beginning of the pandemic. I was the live classroom assistant teacher, cleaning lady, driver, event planner, while still doing my full-time job to keep my business running smoothly. Even with a healthy diet, I started to have serious acid reflux issues.

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

Maggie Qiu, proud mother of young twin boys, has a lifelong passion for health, purity and nature which contributed to her enduring commitment to wellness and natural living. With a master’s degree in E-Commerce Technology coupled with her project managing experience forged early at Morningstar Inc., Maggie ventured into the rapidly expanding natural food category with her work on the SeabuckWonders brand. For the past eighteen years, Maggie has utilized her expertise in online marketing to help natural, organic supplement, and personal care brands grow from their very beginnings to become successful Nexty Award brands.

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 moved to Chicago for graduate school in 2001. My original plan was to learn and advance in the corporate world. My boyfriend, now husband — James, was also in the corporate field specializing in E-Commerce solutions. We decided it was time to venture out and create our own businesses.

Our first project was a website focused on the natural food industry. Working together in a community of enthusiasts that shared our passion felt so right! I love the community that is the backbone of the natural products industry. People are so kind and caring, down to earth, and hardworking. They radiate positivity and bring a smile to our faces whenever we would meet and talk to them.

Back in 2004, the natural food and organic category was still very niche and not the mainstream industry that it is today. Still, we decided to follow our hearts and fully dedicate our time on natural health brands, moving away from the corporate world. By combining our strengths and passions, we were able to triple our sales in the first two years.

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?

It has to be when we were approached by The Dr. OZ. show, back in May 2011.

People are now more familiar with organic food and the wellness benefits from healthy eating than they were at the time our story aired.

Unique super-foods and especially rare fruit were on trend in the natural community. We’d been focused on building our own organic sea buckthorn farm and making sea buckthorn oil for quite some time at that point.

On May 3rd, I got a request from the Dr. Oz Show’s producer team. They wanted to feature sea buckthorn berry as the next super-fruit and show people how well omega-7 (the main fatty acid in sea buckthorn) can be beneficial to our health.

At that time, I was pregnant with my twins and James was on the Tibetan plateau visiting our farms.

As exciting as it was to be contacted by the show, the catch was that they needed the actual sea buckthorn plants and fresh berries in three days to be able to appear on the show! There was no way to express-ship a sea buckthorn tree from Tibet, and fresh berries were not yet in season, and wouldn’t be until late Fall! James had frozen berries in the facility, but they would melt and become mushy during transportation — even if we overnighted them.

Our store manager, who had previously lived in Portland, said she recalled seeing sea buckthorn plants there. So, I pulled a list of all the garden centers in the Portland area and started calling, while James started looking for freeze-dried sea buckthorn berries from our last harvest season in Tibet.

Luckily, we got a “yes” from a nursery garden center who had three sea buckthorn plants. The staff was so kind and even texted me pictures of the plants. They looked like our Himalayan sea buckthorn plants! The nursery was kind enough to bring the plants to UPS for us, and John (I’ll never forget his name!) at UPS helped us with the daunting task of packing 3ft tall, 25lb sea buckthorn plants!

While I dealt with the sea buckthorn plants, James was able to find dried sea buckthorn berries. On May 5th, we had actual plants, berries, and the sea buckthorn staging images all express-shipped to Rockefeller Center in NY.

The takeaway from this story? The kindness of people and their willingness to help others. People will help each other and will even go out of their way when they know it’s to help someone’s health. It’s an amazing feeling.

I was more than thankful for being able to share the real health benefits from a natural source with the world. I’m glad that I can contribute to the health of others with the work that I do. That thought exists in every step of the way as we make our sea buckthorn oil — from farm to shelf.

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

When I started the business, I covered every aspect of the business with 120% attention — phone calls, emails, managing the store and office. There were times we had to multitask and know all the details. I still agree with that.

If I were to do it again, I would get help from a professional office assistant. I learned to let people do what they are good at, so I can fully concentrate on my own tasks in business to bring efficiency and quality of work. It helps the business move along a timeline and gain more flexibility to enter the market with good timing.

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?

We are thrilled to pass the gifts from Mother Nature to more people, raising awareness of this tiny orange berry which is packed with amazing plant-based omegas and bio-active nutrients that benefit people’s health.

In Eastern Herbalism, it’s believed that there is a close relationship between nature and human beings. We will be in harmony if we can find balance. We embrace ethical organic practices in our farms on the Tibetan Plateau. Sea buckthorn plants can survive in a harsh environment with dry and cold conditions. The roots of its tree hold the soil together and help to reduce soil erosion from wind and flash floods. It helps prevent desertification tremendously! The hard work we put in to support these trees is well worth it.

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

Go with the flow but have awareness of your limits, physically and mentally.

Stress is a much bigger issue nowadays- especially during a pandemic. I joke with my mom friends that we were doing 5 full time jobs at the beginning of the pandemic. I was the live classroom assistant teacher, cleaning lady, driver, event planner, while still doing my full-time job to keep my business running smoothly. Even with a healthy diet, I started to have serious acid reflux issues.

Stress has a bigger impact on our lives than we think. My nutrition program professor is also a psychology professor. It’s been eye opening for me to hear his opinions on the correlation between nutrition, the central and peripheral nervous system, and health issues. Mental health plays a big role in many of the alignments.

To me, real fulfillment comes from learning.

I want to be a lifelong learner. Learning is fun and good for our health! Doesn’t matter if it is a new vegetable/fruit I find at the farmer’s market, a new look I come across at the boutique shop window, or a new joke I learn from my kids, it keeps us going and helps us see the sparkle in our lives.

My grandpa lived until he was 108 years old. He had been through two wars, and serious ups and downs in his life. After he retired as a financial controller, he became a Tai Chi master and a calligraphy master.

He told me the wealth of wisdom and the knowledge we can learn is unlimited. The specific topics or activities didn’t matter-the act of learning and growing keeps us grounded and gives positive energy to go forward in life. Cicero’s “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” is so true.

Lay down on the floor and do core work to regain upper body strength and alignment.

I learned this from my amazing tennis friend who specializes in body alignment adjustment. Oftentimes, we don’t realize our sitting and standing posture creates misalignment to our spine, upper body, and lower body.

I have shoulder pain sometimes, thanks to computer work and browsing on my phone. She pointed out that my lower back tends to tilt forward, and it is not on the same vertical line of my heel, my pelvis, and my rib cage. My shoulder muscle naturally tried hard to compensate for that tilt- building up wear and tear.

Lying down on the floor is the easiest way to find correct spine alignment. I found so much relief after doing that several times a week.

Go out and get more sun! (Not just for vitamin D).

The sun is the ultimate source of energy. Think about it, we eat food to supply our body with needed energy. The three macronutrients, carbohydrates, protein, and fats-we need them all.

Where do they all come from? The plants we eat convert the energy from the sun. The fruits do the same. Fat is a different way to store energy and also needs sun. Getting sunshine helps us receive direct energy from the sun and helps ensure our wellbeing.

Eat dinner before 6pm.

An easy-to-follow fasting option if a 16 hour and 24 hour intermediate fasting plan is hard to manage with your daily schedule is to eat dinner before 6pm. If we eat before 6pm, and eat breakfast at 8am, we get 9 hours for our body to naturally fast, burn fat and repair.

Eating an early dinner can help lower blood glucose. A year-long study by scientists at Columbia University has found that those who eat later in the evening are more likely to have high blood pressure, a higher body mass index (MBI) and higher blood sugar level.

Adding plant based unsaturated fat to dinners helps us feel fuller during fasting. It is better than eating simple carbohydrates which spikes blood sugar level, adding pressure to our existing insulin and blood sugar counter balance system

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

Practice mindfulness and deep breathing once a day. We are overloaded with information, tasks, social media pressure (yay, that exists now) etc. And our brain and body can only handle so much. There are a lot of energy goes into processing all this information, cluttering our mind, consciously or unconsciously.

Daily mindfulness and deep breathing practice helps clear the mind while giving the mind and body a chance to decompress and regroup.

Less is more! Our body is a whole. Body parts connect to each other- including the brain. Our emotional wellbeing is tied to our overall wellbeing.

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

Partnering with your spouse may not be the best option. LOL!

Most of the phone company sales reps will mess up your current plan and phone line, and it takes forever to fix the plan! LOL.

Have a mentor that can point you in the right direction and act as a truthful accountable partner.

Setting boundaries between work and life. We need time to eat and sleep!

We don’t need to code everything from scratch. Timing of the launch is more important than many of the detailed features that bother me even when I go to bed.

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

As you may guess from my previous answers, mental health is my top pick. It’s happening right now, affecting people’s health and wellness. Accessible tools are available to address it. Raise awareness, do simple practices, and support those willing to seek professional help.

Having school age boys, it is heartbreaking to hear the suicidal thoughts among teens driven by loss of confidence and social media peer pressure.

How do all these mental challenges shape a person’s personality and decision-making processes? The trauma or certain behavior pattern can follow them all the way into their adulthood and repeat with their own children. If we plant a seed, we want to remove the pest early on.

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

Please visit us at seabuckwonders.com and our Instagram @seabuckwonders. We post health related blogs, sea buckthorn berries newest researches, and wellness related lifestyle stories, and our farm.

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

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Women In Wellness: Maggie Qiu of SeabuckWonders 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

There will be very uncomfortable moments of growth — inflexion points — where you have no idea how you are going to make it. Persevere and make sure you have the right people around you to help think your way through these moments.

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

Recipient of the Musical America Award for Best Artist of the Year as Agent of Change and noted as a “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) and “a powerhouse leading the industry to new heights” (WQXR), Beth Morrison is an opera-theatre producer and the President and Creative Producer of Beth Morrison Projects.

Beth created Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) in 2006 to identify and support the work of emerging and established living composers. Named as one of the cultural leaders of The Kennedy Center Next 50 in 2021, she is currently an advisory board member of National Sawdust and Brooklyn Youth Chorus, as well as a board member of Opera America, the international competition, Music Theatre Now and Voices 21C, a social justice choir and holds a Bachelor of Music from Boston University, a Master of Music from Arizona State University, and an MFA from Yale School of Drama.

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?

My backstory is that I grew up in a small city in Maine. I have an incredible family with two very supportive parents who introduced me into the arts at a very young age. In fact, my whole family was deeply involved in our community theater, mostly performing in musicals, from the time I was six years old. I thought that I wanted to be a Broadway performer, but then pivoted to classical music when I went to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) at the age of 17. It was my first exposure to classical music, and it hit me hard. I was introduced to the likes of Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa and a whole world that I didn’t know existed musically. I was hooked. I then went on to pursue degrees in vocal performance and vocal pedagogy with an eye toward being a classical singer in opera and a voice teacher at a university. However, I diverted rather quickly into arts administration when I moved back to Boston and started working for BUTI and at a very young age ended up in the senior management role. I quickly learned that was a better fit for me.

After working there for several years, I began to dream about a different kind of opera… something that was completely focused on contemporary stories, working with living composers writing in a fully 21st century way, and with media and theatrical techniques that were cutting edge. There weren’t any examples of this in opera. I was seeing it in theater, but not opera. So, I decided that I needed to start my own company with the express purpose of changing the opera industry by introducing all of these elements. I went back to school to the Yale School of Drama and did a degree in theater management and producing and then moved to NYC to start my company upon graduation. When I started the company it was just me and I was supporting myself as a voice teacher as I raised money to put on the work. Seventeen years later, we are 15 people strong and have a 3 million dollar budget. Along the way, I also co-founded PROTOTYPE Festival which is an annual festival in NYC for contemporary chamber opera and music-theatre and in 2015 we became a bi-coastal company with an office in LA, as well as Brooklyn.

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

This is an impossible question, as there are so many interesting stories- I work in the theater! But, I guess I would say the starting of my festival is a real defining moment in my trajectory. I had been trying to get my work into the January festivals that happen in NYC because, due to a number of industry conferences at that time, there is a confluence of venue directors and presenters in NYC shopping for work to bring back to their venues. BMP is a touring company, so I needed to find a way to put my work in front of these people. After being rejected from the theater and dance festivals, I decided I needed to start a festival that focused on contemporary chamber opera and music-theatre. Around that time I was approached by the Mellon Foundation to come in and tell them about BMP. At the end of the conversation, I told them about my idea for a festival, and they said they wanted to fund and help me start one. So, with my co-producer here we did just that, and now ten years later we are lauded as one of the most important contemporary opera festivals in the world.

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

Well it certainly wasn’t funny at the time, but the first year I was working, I joined a project that was in progress. There was an executive producer on the project that I was working with. He tasked me with creating the budget. After presenting the budget to him, I realized that my numbers were off by $100,000 because of a formula error. I wanted to die! I remember crying a lot that night. To his credit, or maybe not, he didn’t fire me! I now have an Executive Director who does the budgeting so these mistakes don’t happen anymore!

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?

There are many people that have been significant in my career and have helped me along the way, but I’ll go all the way back to the beginning, and tie it in with my story about BUTI. In Auburn, ME as a performer I was a big fish in a little pond. In my junior year of high school, my choral director, Kathi Cutler, brought a brochure to me from the Tanglewood Institute. I had never heard of it. She said that she thought it would be a great place for me, to push me, to expand my horizons if you will. So, she and my band director John Neal, took it upon themselves to teach me an aria from Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart), as well as drive me down to Boston for the audition. Mr. Neal played piano for me. As you know, I got in, and the rest is history. It was one of *the* defining moments of my life, and I’m so deeply grateful that these incredible teachers took an interest in me and went out of their way to help me.

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

That’s an interesting question. In my field, while things have changed pretty dramatically in the last five years — women have historically not been given the opportunity to be the lead artistic voice for a company. Very often in theaters, and certainly in opera companies, men are given the Artistic Director role, and women are given the Managing Director position, somehow indicating that women can’t lead in creative pursuits. So, very often, the companies that are the independent ones doing interesting work have been founded by women because they would not otherwise have been given the opportunity. We have to found our own companies if we want to have an artistic voice in the field.

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

This is a huge question. I would just say that things are slowly changing. But people follow the money. So, if foundations will step up in the non-profit performing arts sector and create grants for artistic leadership by women, companies will hire and follow suit.

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

It simply gives you the opportunity to be the boss and the visionary. There’s not much else to say but that!

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

I’m not sure what myths you are talking about, but I guess founders are known for putting passion before practicality. I’m definitely guilty of that in some ways — until I had a general manager and ultimately an executive director, I was literally paying myself as little as possible so that I could put every dollar onto the stage and into commissions. I would calculate the minimum amount needed for my bills and go with that. Finally, I’m paid a proper salary because I have someone else making that decision!

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

You have to be comfortable with risk, and you have to be able to put in enormous amounts of time to create your company. It’s not for the faint of heart!

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

1. It’s harder than you could ever imagine.
2. Be careful who you hire and go with your gut.
3. Kindness goes a long way, as does saying I’m sorry.
4. Doing it alone is lonely. As soon as you can bring on other people/partners, do it, but make sure they are the right people.
5. There will be very uncomfortable moments of growth — inflexion points — where you have no idea how you are going to make it. Persevere and make sure you have the right people around you to help think your way through these moments.

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

I take my role in the field very seriously, and I believe I have a responsibility to foster the next generation. We have formalized that mission through our Next Gen and Producer Academy programs.

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

This is another massive question. I think being in the world we are in today, the thing I would most like to inspire is kindness. We all f- up and make mistakes in our lives. I’d love to see a movement of calling-in rather than calling-out; maybe the world would be a better place to live in. I believe everyone can learn, change, and grow from their mistakes.

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

Jared Leto. He inspires me — he’s someone who is self-made, brings meaning to others through his tremendous skills as a troubadour (and actor), and has a keen mind and business sense. Maybe he would make me look at the world through a different lens that would inspire me to my next height!

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

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Female Founders: Beth Morrison On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Kayla Mason of Awake & Relaxed On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Be your own biggest cheerleader! No one is going to be as passionate about your business or cause as you are. You cannot rely on others energy and enthusiasm to drive your project, you just need to dig deep, keep cheering yourself on, and take one step at a time.

As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kayla Mason of Awake & Relaxed.

Kayla is a multi-passionate entrepreneur whose thrill for mindful living landed her an invite to the exclusive Mindbodygreen Revitalize event in her first year of business. Kayla has grown a combined audience (across platforms) of 103K and remains keen and focused on making an impact in the wellness space, bringing new concepts and technology to light. Years of experience in different sectors, including eleven years in industrial engineering, have all added to Kayla’s entrepreneurial toolkit.

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?

Sure! I am a corporate engineer turned multi-passionate, self-employed entrepreneur. I worked in construction management and engineering for eleven years building natural gas plants across Canada and the US. When my then career brought me to Kansas City, I realized that I was on the verge of burnout and started to seek out wellness modalities within the Midwest. I began studying ayurveda and Chinese medicine; picked my yoga practice back up after a long break and became a certified instructor. I dabbled into multiple businesses from teaching yoga at corporate offices (while still working full time), to yoga workshops, and making juice videos online. This all led me to where I am at now; owning multiple mindful rentals and a health & wellness business and blog called Awake & Relaxed which talks about conscious living from the inside out. Under this umbrella, I am about to host my third annual wellness summit that will showcase local and national brands and providers, as well as take on taboo topics that are hitting the wellness world.

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

One of the most interesting things that happened since I started my career in mindful rentals and wellness was a Tiktok video that I had go viral. I still remember the day that it was featured on Yahoo. One of my co-workers messaged me and said “I think I just saw your face on Yahoo?”. It was super exciting, and I jumped at the opportunity to make content and maintain my audience, for a bit…. from that came an 8 month hiatus from the platform, I was feeling uninspired and well, stuck! Lesson learned for me was — that’s ok! I am now back on Tiktok and making video content when it feels fun and alive in my body.

Another, very delightful experience, was applying for and receiving an exclusive invite to the MindBodyGreen Revitalize event in my first year of business! If you know of MBG, you know that they are the OGs in the wellness world, prior to GOOP and others showing up in the last few years. This was huge! Unfortunately, covid happened, and the event has been cancelled ever since. At that time, I felt so connected to going, I could feel it in my bones! I had also spent a lot of time in gratitude thinking about the opportunity and surrendered to knowing that any outcome would be the right outcome for me. It was a very freeing moment and I hope to get the opportunity again someday.

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

A mistake that I made early on in my entrepreneurial ventures was spending too much money before seeing a return. I was still working full time as an engineer, making a great paycheck, while also building up my wellness business. I could justify losing money in one area because I was still making it in another. This made my side business more of a passion, instead of an actual functioning business. I wish I would have been a bit more resourceful, but I traded money for time. I still believe that sometimes it costs money to make money. But I also believe that you need to be honest with yourself about financials, and pivot from there.

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?

Awake & Relaxed is the umbrella through which I provide my take on health and wellness trends, offer tips and tricks for how to optimize your healing, host community events and gatherings, and educate on various topics. The aim is for the A&R community to take the journey together, being awake and aware of what’s going on in the world around us, while also allowing our bodies to be at ease during the process. That’s the ultimate goal. If I can provide a space and setting for people to learn from one another, to connect and share, then I believe that is a step in the right direction that will leave a positive ripple effect. I also work very hard at making A&R a safe space for people to express their thoughts and opinions (to me), whether I agree or not. I think we can be a little bias in wellness sometimes, and I prefer to openly recognize that everyone’s journey is so different. I am always open to hearing someone out. I don’t block a person when they disagree with something I have posted or said. I simply ask them if they can explain to me where they are coming from. Nine times out of ten, we end up with a better understanding of where each other is coming from and leave on a friendly note. I hope that encourages them to do the same.

With mindful and eco-friendly rentals, I hope to allow lower budget travelers a place to unplug and recharge. Wellness traveling shouldn’t be exclusive. There needs to be more affordable options. I hope my homes encourage people to take a moment to reconnect with nature, to feel inspired by the colors or design, or to get some much-needed rest. I spend so much time and effort thinking through every detail, color, piece of thrifted furniture or find that goes into a space, they are literally infused with the joy I have while creating them. A smudge every now and then doesn’t’ hurt either.

Making the Midwest a hub for wellness. I always take inspiration from the coastal wellness trends that are hitting the headlines, but there is also so much to learn from the people in the heartland! By continuing to host wellness summits, I hope to bring some recognition to the people here and to put Kansas City on the map for the wellness scene.

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.

Habit Behaviors — You want to floss your teeth more? Drink more water? Make it easy on yourself and put the things to help you get there in your everyday sight. Floss in a drawer can easily get lost, but when it is right beside your toothbrush you are much more likely to use it. Make it easy!

Boundaries — Bottom line is that boundaries are good for the soul. It’s hard, especially for women, to put themselves first. It’s just not in our nature. Set boundaries with your time. Whether that’s blocking off 15 minutes in the morning, taking a break from work or asking not to be bothered during lunch.

Mineral Intake — Add salt to your morning water! This can also act as a cleansing routine, in the Gaelic traditions, with a pinch of salt under the tongue.

Cacao over Coffee — Don’t get me wrong, I am a coffee lover! But coffee every day just wasn’t supporting my body. Cacao is a superfood containing loads of magnesium, something that as Americans, we are deficient in. Replacing coffee with cacao a few times a week will leave you feeling more grounded and nourished from the inside out.

Speak nicely to yourself. Our stories become our reality. If you are always picking apart how you look, then you are telling your brain to always pick up on something, the negative loop will never end.

*Bonus One: Change up your space every so often (seasonally if possible)! Move things around, switch out items from different rooms. Allow for things to change. It’s a good practice.

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

Meditation Movement! I truly believe that most of our illnesses, at least in Western culture, stem from elevated levels of stress. If we can learn to manage that through stillness and meditation, I think a lot of mental health and health issues in general would decrease.

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

1. Be your own biggest cheerleader! No one is going to be as passionate about your business or cause as you are. You cannot rely on others energy and enthusiasm to drive your project, you just need to dig deep, keep cheering yourself on, and take one step at a time.
2. Don’t strive for perfection, strive for progress.
3. It takes discipline to bring a vision to life. If you have trouble putting your vision into actionable steps, then you need someone on your team to do so.
4. It’s OK to switch things up. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for changing directions, coming out with a new business name, or changing your niche. Follow your instincts and go for it.
5. The more you know, the more you know. As your journey with self-healing deepens, you may find yourself in the never-ending cycle of needing to learn more; it’s a lifelong journey and can feel like there is always a next step! Just remember to allow time for integration. We are human. Take time to enjoy being exactly where you’re at right now.

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 recently heard the term “eco-anxiety” which is essentially the fear of environmental doom. “Whatever that is”, I thought, “I have that.”. I was concerned about pretty much everything that goes along with living a modern-day lifestyle. My husband would order underwear that came in plastic wrapping, and I would start to sweat thinking about having to keep the plastic out of a landfill. Takeaway containers…don’t get me started on those. There are so many big topics that are near and dear to my heart, but sustainability has always been on the top of my mind. We see so many “Amazon Hauls” and clothing hauls on social media, and I just wish we had a more mindful approach to what is even available to us as consumers. It’s not necessarily the “end of the chain” that is the problem, but the companies producing all of these things without repercussion or incentives to do better for the environment. I travel, I consume, I purchase clothing; I am not perfect in any way. And we all have to continue living life. But the small changes I make in my daily life are just a spec in the ocean of a much greater problem.

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

I love exploring whole body wellness as an eco-system that encompasses mind, body, spirit and space on my blog at www.awakeandrelaxed.com. You can find me on Instagram @awakeandrelaxed where I post about a lot of upcoming events and information. And my personal tiktok (breathe.with.kash) if you like watching a mixed variety of content from mindful homes, starting an Airbnb, to juice recipes and more.

A new venture, that I’m really excited to start sharing more about is @sipsteady on Instagram. Here, my business partner and I, explore the realm on alcohol-free beverages hitting the market and are working with exciting new brands that are coming into this space.

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

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Women In Wellness: Kayla Mason of Awake & Relaxed 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: Shari Zisk of Radiance Wellness On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Ground yourself. Humans are electrical beings, the earth is a battery, and when we stand on the planet with bare feet, we recharge. It is a simple concept yet so foreign to us in our modern world. In my wellness-oriented community, it is not uncommon to see like-minded people walking their kids to school or simply strolling on nature trails barefoot. I encourage my clients to recharge daily with a grounding mat under their workstations, an outdoor barefoot walk or sitting. Let’s normalize naked feet everywhere!

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

Shari Zisk is a holistic personal trainer and wellness writer who spent the last 25 years creating fitness and wellness experiences for people of all ages and abilities. In addition to thousands of hours on the training room floor, Shari has been an ambassador for active lifestyles from many different positions. Shari completed hundreds of one-on-one personal training sessions by the time she finished University, where she majored in Human Kinetics. Fresh from completing her degree, she worked outfitting homes, condos, schools, and hotels with fitness equipment. Shari then went on to work with an international organization on large-scale initiatives to promote active lifestyles to older adults. She worked behind the scenes publishing a wellness trade publication, managed a boutique personal training studio, and ran the fitness department at a vibrant community center. Shari wrote fitness and wellness articles for various magazines. She started one of the first fitness blogs, where she still writes about the latest trends in fitness and wellness.

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?

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to say, “for every disease that we know; God allows a herb to grow.” I believe that phrase planted a seed that shaped my thinking about health and inspired my wellness-seeking adventures over the last 25 years.

Simply knowing that I could fix, heal or reverse my ailments set a strategic way of thinking in motion. I assumed that all I had to do was seek a solution to what ailed me, to reveal a remedy or healing strategy that already existed for it.

For example, I started wearing glasses in the 5th grade. I recall asking my optometrist if there were any exercises that could help restore my weak myopic vision. I believed that if something was weak, then we ought to strengthen it. My optometrist didn’t have any solutions other than glasses.

Also, when my dentist announced that I had an overbite that needed an orthodontic device, I tried to convince my parents that I could do it myself. I believed that I could train my jaw muscles to restore my bite.

I think that this mentality attracted me to fitness. Through fitness, I could take charge and change my body. I could make it more robust and flexible and alter its shape. I could make it run faster and bend further. I could change its performance by the way that I fueled it. This knowledge was very empowering to me.

I signed up for my first gym membership at age 16 and showed up there to pump iron most days after school until I graduated. After that, fitness became ‘my thing’.

During my first year at University, I intended to study business. However, I spent a lot of time designing workouts for my friends and training them in the gym. I switched from a business focus to the human kinetics department and continued to spend five years studying human movement. I then spent almost 25 exciting years working in the fitness industry. I hosted large-scale wellness events and initiatives across North America, and I managed teams of personal trainers at a boutique training studio and a vibrant community center. I sold commercial and retail fitness equipment, outfitting gyms, hotels, schools, and even the military with fitness equipment. As a freelance writer, I wrote fitness and wellness articles for publications across North America.

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

The most interesting thing that has happened since I started in the Fitness industry is the massive shift I am experiencing right now. First, for years I studied the origins and insertions of the muscles. Next, I mastered how to train them for strength, shape them, and feed them. I then explored their link to posture and spent over a decade studying alignment and corrective exercise.

I currently see the direction of my fitness career dominated by two somewhat unrelated yet powerful elements: fascia and community.

We now know that our fascial system has more sensory nerves than our muscles. Recent science shows us that disturbances in our fascia can impair our muscular system (and many other systems). This new scientific information is game-changing regarding how we assess fitness, prepare for it, and train for it. I have been spending a lot of time upgrading my business to accommodate the new fascia science.

As for community, people bond when they move together, sweat together, overcome challenges together, share successes, and find unknown strengths. When people find ‘their’ people,’ it creates new human social groups or mini-communities.

As discussed in the Joy of Movement, the enlightening book by Health Psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal, group fitness experiences are potent ways to create supportive communities within communities. So now, instead of building muscles, I am focused on building community through unique fitness experiences (including fascia care).

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?

By the time I was 20 years old, I was a busy personal trainer. While still a University student, I worked in a women-only fitness club, and I would see up to 8 women a day and consult with them on their fitness program. Yes, I was a certified personal trainer and a University student studying Human kinetics. Still, WOW, I had no business guiding women on their fitness and health with the bit of wisdom I had at the time.

My clients wanted to strengthen their core after having a baby. Yet, I knew nothing of Diastasis Rectii, the abdominal separation that can occur after a pregnancy. I worked with many women who experienced pelvic incontinence, not knowing how problematic jumping and twisting movements were. I pushed my clients through tough workouts on the low-energy days of their Moon cycle when I should have guided them into more restorative activities. I had my senior clients get down on the floor to stretch, causing them horrible embarrassment when they could not get back up from the ground without assistance.

Today, there are courses so personal trainers can learn how to safely work with pre-and post-natal women, seniors, and with most medical concerns. However, I strongly recommend that new personal trainers align with an experienced mentor in the industry. Find a trainer who is open to being shadowed and contacted regularly for ongoing guidance. I also encourage anyone new in the industry to get very comfortable saying, “I need to do further research and preparation before we work together.”

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

My biggest audience is the 40+ Mama, the woman who is busy with kids and possibly her career. A woman whose fortitude is necessary to provide balance, stability, and nutrition for her family. A woman whose strength, health, and robustness are pillars for her family and her entire community.

I am working on creating unique fitness and wellness experiences that fortify families and communities by strengthening the bodies and minds of essential members of the community: the women.

I have a passion for exercise physiology, a flair for marketing, and a deep love of nature. With this, I am creating fun, innovative fitness and wellness experiences that bring Mama’s together, in nature, to sweat together, to strengthen their muscles and hearts.

I am combining intelligent program design, a connection to the biophilia innate in all of us (love of nature), pure fun elements, camaraderie, adherence, and motivation. I am building programs that strengthen and create robust communities.

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.

How I design fitness programs has changed drastically over the last 25 years. I now take a holistic approach to helping my clients live active, vibrant, and robust lives. As a result, every program I design includes whole-person wellness that provides for functional movement, time in nature, regeneration, and mind-body activities. Here are my five lifestyle tweaks that will move the needle for everyone.

1. Tend to your fascia. Beneath our ‘skin suit’ is a fluid layer with many critical functions. This fascia layer also envelopes every structure in the body, including all muscles and all organs. It is the superhighway for communication throughout the body and vitally essential for movement. Unfortunately, fascia can dry out, rendering it much like a dry sponge; hard and stiff. This state disables many of its functions. We are now learning that many aches and pains, are directly related to dehydrated fascia and stuck stress.
   A little bit of daily fascia care can work wonders for so many things; however, the study of our fascial system is relatively new. Therefore, you will be hard-pressed to find a fascia-care class in your neighborhood. However, we are not far away from massive amounts of programming for fascia.
   Shortly we will see fascia care programs built into all fitness programs. All personal trainers will be well-trained in assessing fascia health and restoring hydration to the stuck spots. In the meantime, I encourage people to get a foam roller and learn to roll their fascia, perform fascial fitness movements with guidance from an online or in-person class, or receive manual fascia work with a trained therapist.
2. Spend Time in Nature. When I design programs for my in-person and virtual clients, I program their cardio, strength, flexibility, and I include time in nature. For the city-dwelling, commuting, hectic person, at least 10 minutes in nature is an effective intervention. I work with my clients to find suitable nature inclusions for their lifestyles, and we write them into their weekly programs. Examples include:
   – Eat lunch in a flower garden.
   – Walk a tree-lined pathway.
   – Do a lap around a small lake or pond.
   If you can commit to ten minutes twice a week, don’t be surprised when you start to long for your time in nature and extend your stay.
3. Ground yourself. Humans are electrical beings, the earth is a battery, and when we stand on the planet with bare feet, we recharge. It is a simple concept yet so foreign to us in our modern world. In my wellness-oriented community, it is not uncommon to see like-minded people walking their kids to school or simply strolling on nature trails barefoot. I encourage my clients to recharge daily with a grounding mat under their workstations, an outdoor barefoot walk or sitting. Let’s normalize naked feet everywhere!
4. Indulge in a fistful of greens every day. Fresh, organic, water-filled food daily is essential for robust health. I consumed so many powder meals and energy bars during my 20s. How did we ever expect to have moist, glowing skin back in the early 90s while consuming all those dehydrating powder shakes and bars?When I think about how dry all that food was, I am convinced that it caused dehydration, leading to many of my digestive and health issues. I encourage my clients to start with a minimum of a fistful of organic greens like spinach, kale, and arugula, blended into a smoothie. The vitality from it is unmatched by any other food.
5. Movement in all directions. We see minimal movement variation if we analyze the average person’s daily movement patterns. We find that most people spend a disproportionate amount of time repeating the same small movements, all in the same plane (the saggital, or front-to-back plane). Some people go months (or forever) without performing any deep bends, overhead reaches, or spine twists. Those who exercise often move like robots and may miss out on the bending, extension, and rotation needed for optimal strength and function. The ‘use-it-or-lose it’ cliche still holds very accurately. In older age, we see these functions disappear from inactive bodies. For my clients, I program at least two weekly strength-training sessions, including multi-plane movements. In addition, each holistic program also includes weekly mind-body activities (yoga, meditation) and at least one regenerative activity (massage, fascia work, sauna).

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 am passionate about cultivating the mighty women of the future by instilling strong health and fitness values in young girls. However, many may not have the opportunity to get started on the right foot. For this reason, I created TrainerGirl, the award-winning fitness intervention designed especially for at-risk youth. This program recognizes that a shift in utilizing personal training resources can alter the course of life for many individuals. It also has the ability to influence entire communities and even nations. TrainerGirl aims to reach the ‘client’ who has not yet had the opportunity to develop behaviors destructive to her physical and psychological health. The result: strong, healthy & empowered young women. The women of the future.

As a personal trainer, I change people’s lives daily. My daily job description includes making people feel better about themselves and how they look, feel and perform. I reduce blood pressure, improve posture, battle depression, lower golf scores and tighten and tone a lot of body parts. It is gratifying work. However, only a select few can take advantage of the guidance of a professional personal trainer. The classic personal training client is hardly a case for philanthropic attention.

In contrast, the Trainergirl program serves the young girl (13–17) with a lack of financial resources to participate in organized sports or physical activities, possibly with a lack of female support in the household plus one or more of the following:

• Lack of self-confidence to participate in school-provided physical activity programs
• Distorted body image
• Low self-esteem
• Untrained social skills
• History of physical inactivity
• Obesity

The TrainerGirl Curriculum

By the end of the 8-week training program, each TrainerGirl will:

• Understand the five components of fitness
• Understand the elements of good posture and how it relates to how her body looks, feels, and performs
• Understand how different types of physical activity influence how her body looks, feels, and performs
• Know the FITT formula for training each component of fitness
• Know her heart rate training zone, how to check her heart rate and how it relates to her fitness goals
• Co-create a custom list of affordable physical activity opportunities in her community
• Have a customized fitness program to do in the home, backyard, park or community at no cost and with minimal equipment. I would love to see the TrainerGirl program available in every city, so every young girl has the opportunity get started off on the right foot.

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

1. I started my adventures in the fitness industry back in the early 90s. I wish someone would have told me just how much innovation this industry would see over the next 30 years. During my first workouts, I wore a big bulky cassette player hooked onto my gym shorts, my clothes did not wick my sweat away, and I had no idea what my heart rate was. My shoes were not antimicrobial or well cushioned, and big bouncy balls were for playgrounds, not grown-up gyms. That’s a lot of innovation in which I should have invested!
2. I wish I had read The Artists’ Way by Julie Cameron and started writing my Morning pages or journaling in my early 20s. Now that I write daily, I have captured thoughts and ideas, and channeled beautiful articles. I think back to all the wellness adventures I have been on, the protein powders I have sampled, the fitness classes I have taken, and the gurus I have met. Suppose I had noted it all daily, along with my deepest thoughts and emotions. In that case, I can only imagine the rich wellness content I would have on file today.
3. I wish someone had taught me how to nourish my network. It is much easier now with social media to stay connected, follow, like, and nudge the people I meet. Over the last 25 years, I met many creative people working in health, fitness, and wellness. This was the era before social media. It would be an incredible resource to be connected to all of the great wellness leaders and game-changers that I knew when they were young.
4. I wish I had attended the Anthony Robbins, Unleash The Power Within event at the start of my wellness career. I learned so much insight and tools about human behavior and behavior change at the 4-day event. My knowledge far exceeds the psychology, sociology, psychoneuroimmunology, marketing, and programming classes I took in my five years at University. Also, understanding human motivation has altered how I design wellness programs. It influences how I make posters and ads for my fitness classes, write articles and newsletters, and speak to my clients and potential clients.
5. I wish I had learned about intuition in childhood, and how to use it. I look back at many instances where my intuition screamed at me, and I ignored it. There were people, situations, and opportunities where I wish I had reacted differently. I never learned to trust my instinct and align with the voice guiding me. Lately, I have been taking courses and reading many books about developing my skills on this topic.

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

All these topics intertwine with my lifetime of work in wellness. Where I feel that my work covertly moves the needle is with mental health.

Here are some examples of people whose outlook on life changed when their fitness changed.

• I witnessed an older man enter my studio, malnourished and grey. Then, after six weeks of training, he arrived with glowing red cheeks, flushed with nourishment and the joy he radiated.
• I also observed a sweet lonely senior citizen who lived alone and without purpose. She began to ‘live’ again for the new community she found at her fitness classes.
• I have seen depressed people lift their heads and carry themselves differently after starting a fitness routine.
• I watched many awkward teenage boys discover their muscles, which completely changed how they entered the room.
• I have seen young, frail girls empowered by the dumbbells they could lift.

As I described in my TrainerGirl program above, I love to provide those most at-risk access to the joy, radiance, and empowerment that comes with a wellness lifestyle.

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

I post snippets and photos of my wellness explorations on Instagram @trainershari. I write feature articles on my wellness blog at www.radiancewelllness.ca. I guide members of my community through fun, sweaty workouts in our nature-loving wellness community in Georgia or through my virtual coaching program.

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

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

Female Founders: Katy Knauff of Kamp Social House On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Be Prepared to Pivot: I had the best business plan on the block, but just two months in we had to make some major changes to ensure we could continue our momentum. I knew that I’d need to be open to change, but ‘be prepared to pivot’ has become somewhat of a mantra for me as every day brings new challenges.

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

Katy is a lifelong restaurateur with a passion for creating memorable experiences for her guests. She launched Kamp Social House in July 2022, a bar and restaurant in Seattle, Washington with the motto “Don’t be a Stranger”. Check out www.kampseattle.com for more info about Kamp Social House.

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?

My first job in a restaurant was as a host for a longstanding restaurant in Long Beach, CA. I was a shy kid, but hosting brough me out of my shell and taught me how to prioritize, set expectations and most importantly, it taught me how to hustle. I’m forever grateful to the restaurant’s owner, Cheryl Carter, for taking a chance on me and allowing me to truly grow up in her business. Much of how I run my business today is because of her mentorship.

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

As an owner/operator, I’m always behind the scenes, and I’m almost always in tennis shoes and an apron, versus a blazer and pumps. I was on the floor one day, so I went to a table to drop off drinks and I asked the guests how everything was tasting. One of the guests told me that everything was great and that they’d ‘like to tell the owner’, and they asked me to grab ‘him’. This is just one of many examples where an assumption was made about the gender of the business owner, as it’s historically been men in the world of restaurants. It was a reminder to continue to lean into authenticity, and to remain empowered as a female founder to change misconceptions.

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?

Cheryl Carter is the owner of Johnny Rebs’ True South and she took a chance on me when I was a shy, inexperienced teenager. She quickly became a mentor as she was accessible and transparent, and I was seeking a role model. I was able to learn from her experience, and as I grew within the company, she allowed me to take risks. She believed in bettering everyone around her, including me. I owe a lot of my success to her mentorship, and I hope to pay it forward as a founder.

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

I believe that funding continues to be blocker for many women. My story is one that I’ve heard echoed by other female founders, and I hope that by continuing to share that we can make a change. My wife facilitated the initial financial discovery process, as there are a lot of ways to fund a business. Ultimately, we decided on a traditional SBA loan, and she was initially approved for the exact amount we’d requested. When we went to meet our banker and sign the paperwork, we did so in person. Even though nothing on our end had changed, when we got the paperwork, we were shocked to see that we’d been approved for a fraction (less than 30%) of what we’d initially asked and been approved for. After doing research on our end, we learned that as women, we were a higher risk for the bank, which likely impacted our approval. We determined that because my wife has a gender-neutral name, there was a possibility she was initially mistaken for a male. While we can’t prove that this was the case, what we do know is that more female founders seeking capital via traditional routes could improve future founders’ chances of being approved for what they need. Are we a higher risk? My P&L says otherwise.

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

I believe in the golden rule of treating others as you’d like to be treated. I believe that if more individuals acted on this principle, that we’d have fewer obstacles as a society.

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

The statistic quoted in the EY report that only 20 percent of funded companies have women founders is a sad statistic. I know this shows progress, but that means we have a long way to go to reach gender equity in the marketplace. Women need to forge ahead and continue founding businesses because business drives change. What’s been happening to women’s health rights in the U.S. just in the past six months is proof alone that we need more women in charge. Business drives progress, and progress is what women need right now.

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

I think the biggest myth I’ve heard is that all founders of profitable businesses are making a lot of money. It’s why I view transparency as being a critical aspect of business success, as you want those around you to know what’s really going on with the financials of the business they influence. What people don’t always see is your balance sheet, as that can be the story behind ‘where the money goes’. In my case, we put our earnings back into our team and our business so we can all grow together. I’m aware that my business succeeds because of my team, so they come first when it comes to sharing the financial success.

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

I think the only trait any founders share is passion, and you either you have it, or you don’t. Everyone has a skill that could make them a good founder, but passion is the driver that keeps your business going and growing.

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

1) Be Prepared to Pivot: I had the best business plan on the block, but just two months in we had to make some major changes to ensure we could continue our momentum. I knew that I’d need to be open to change, but ‘be prepared to pivot’ has become somewhat of a mantra for me as every day brings new challenges.

2) Fuel Your Passion: I mentioned earlier that the primary trait any founder shares is passion, but I view passion as a fire that needs to be stoked. So, I find ways to continue to fuel my passion to ensure that I stay excited and innovative about my business. For me, I fuel my passion through my network. I ask for meetings and informal chats with other founders I admire. I’ve been shocked by some of the people who’ve said ‘yes’ to a chat, as these are founders I’d have thought were too busy to spare any time. It’s been a pleasant surprise to learn from their stories and to hear their feedback about my journey as a founder.

3) Take Time for Gratitude: The path to becoming a founder starts with an idea. In my case, I took an idea and within one year, I’ve turned it into a physical space where I’m able to share my passion with those around me. If I have a rough day, or if I have a great day, I find the time to be grateful for where I’m at. I worked hard to get where I am now, and I’ll continue working hard to move towards my never-ending goals. If I don’t take the time to enjoy my successes, then what’s the point?

4) Become a Sponsor: I have employees on my team who have goals of opening their own restaurants. Rather than viewing that as negative, I aim to be a sponsor in supporting their goals. This means finding teachable moments, emphasizing professional development and being transparent about what it takes to launch a business. When I’ve spoken about this with other restaurant owners, I’ve been asked if I’m afraid that they’ll leave me someday because their aspirations are bigger than just a job at Kamp. I respond with ‘that’s why I hired them’. As a founder, I view my role as building a business and building up the people who make that happen. What my team decides to do with their learnings is up to them, and that doesn’t change if I do or don’t sponsor their goals. So, I seek to support versus stifle.

5) Maintain Mentorships: I mentioned that I ask for informal chats from founders I admire, and occasionally, I meet someone I want to continue learning from. So, I simply ask if they’re open to being a mentor. There’s a difference between a sponsor and a mentor, and at this stage in my journey, I need mentors. Asking for them can be an awkward conversation, but its one I’m find necessary if you want to have a community of support as your business grows.

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

I live by the mantra ‘think globally, but act locally’, as I believe that making an impact in your sphere of influence is better than making no impact at all. I’m a doer, so when I see or hear about an injustice, I find a way to make a difference within my community and I level up from there.

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

I think that business owners need to make decisions that impact people as much as they impact profit. Human capital is all we have in the restaurant business, so I ensure they’re my priority when I make a business decision. One small example of that is offering paid time off, or health insurance to employees to allow people too feel secure in their roles and lives. If a member of my team is distracted by an HR-type issue that I can influence, then I take action to alleviate their distraction. This isn’t always the best financial decision for the business, but finding peace at work is a line item I prioritize

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

I’d love to have lunch with Megan Rapinoe, Firstly, I’m a wild soccer fan so I’d love to talk soccer, but most importantly I’d like to learn more about her motivation. I appreciate that she doesn’t back down from doing what’s right and she puts values before profit, just like I do at Kamp.

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

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Female Founders: Katy Knauff of Kamp Social House On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women Of The C-Suite: Wendy Barnes of RxBenefits On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Challenge the status quo: The innovation that makes organizations like ours successful comes from being able to challenge the status quo. We must be intentional about having diverse perspectives at the table, allowing our teammates to be their authentic selves, empowering our leaders to build capability within their teams, and offering consistent support for the outcomes and efforts of our teams.

As a part of our interview series called “Women Of The C-Suite”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy Barnes.

Wendy Barnes is the CEO of RxBenefits, the industry’s first-of-its-kind Pharmacy Benefit Optimizer (PBO). She has over 25 years of experience in the PBM and broader pharmacy space. Both a strategic leader and visionary, Wendy is driven by a desire to bend the healthcare cost curve to serve patients better.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! 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?

Healthcare has always been a passion of mine — specifically, helping people navigate through the pharmacy and medical benefit maze. I have spent my whole career in the industry, serving in leadership positions that include president of Express Scripts Pharmacy, group vice president of managed care at RITE AID, director of pharmacy contracting and new business development, at Premier Inc., professional sales representative at Pfizer, and 10 years as a Medical Service Corps Officer in the US Air Force. Despite all of my experience and efforts to improve the patient experience, healthcare remains incredibly complicated, and, at various points, I’ve found myself interacting with patients who aren’t familiar with those complexities and have been failed by the system. Those experiences led me to believe we have an obligation to do better for the people we serve, simplify the processes for them, cut costs, and conduct business fairly and with compassion. That is why I was incredibly pleased to join RxBenefits.

Today, I am proud to serve as CEO at RxBenefits, the employee benefits industry’s first technology-enabled pharmacy benefits optimizer (PBO). At our core, we’re focused on improving patient lives and bending the healthcare cost curve. This role allows me to use my knowledge of the pharmacy benefits industry to produce better outcomes for members. I’m dedicated to further empowering members of the RxBenefits family to continue disrupting the marketplace and keep pharmacy benefits fair and affordable for all.

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

Regardless of the size or scale of an organization, I am continuously amazed by the caliber of talent in the healthcare industry and, especially, in the pharmacy benefits marketplace. You must care deeply and compassionately to work in this space, and the RxBenefits team’s ability to exceed expectations surpasses significantly larger operations. It is impressive how we approach the market and create new solutions — I’m astounded at the thoughtful way our staff positions itself, produces extraordinary results, and blazes trails. When competitors are all going in one direction, we are constantly asking, “But is that really the best thing for the client?” That mentality seems to be inherent in our culture, which I just love — the client and the patient are really at the center of everything we do. It’s really heartening.

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

Typically, days are very busy with obligations scheduled back-to-back. On more than one occasion I walked into a meeting thinking it was about a certain topic, only to realize it was about something entirely different after I’d come in and opened the meeting by bringing up what I thought everyone was there to discuss. It’s earned me some strange looks, either from meeting attendees in the room or from computer screens, but in the end, it’s a good reminder to slow down, collect your bearings occasionally, breathe deeply, and focus on what’s next. It’s also a nice reminder that I work with some very polite, understanding, and good-humored people!

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’ve been blessed to have several strong mentors along the way, and I’m particularly grateful for Tim Wentworth, former CEO of Express Scripts, who imparted astute advice over the years. Tim was one of the best people-leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and it’s from him that I’ve really learned how to develop healthy, collaborative cultures and teams.

Another important thing some of my mentors taught me along the way is to not confuse people liking me with being a good leader. Though this can be challenging at times, it is important for all individuals in leadership positions to remember that making a decision might result in healthy tension. The key is to provide an environment where one’s team can provide input and healthy debate, but ultimately you own the decision, and you then need to manage it as best you can.

As a business leader, can you please share a few steps we must take to truly create an inclusive, representative, and equitable society? Kindly share a story or example for each.

Understanding the importance of having a diverse workforce, I’ve worked hard in my career to establish such teams. However, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. A few areas we’re focused on include:

• Hire diverse staff: We need people from different backgrounds and experiences to bring ideas and thoughts to the table so we can be sure we’re considering and including all possible customers. We work very hard to ensure we have a well-represented talent pool for all positions, especially leadership roles.
• Allow the space for DE&I discussions to take place among all staff members: To create truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive workspaces, employees must respect each other’s needs and feel comfortable sharing their unique perspectives to reach their full potential. This space allows everyone to be more authentic, bolder, and less judged. This only happens when our culture supports open, candid conversations whenever and wherever there is a need.
• Engage with underrepresented perspectives: Leaders need to make underrepresented groups in the workplace feel confident enough to clarify the path they’d like to follow by asking questions, equipping them with tools and helping them develop strategies to achieve those career goals, and clearly devising ways to eradicate or work around worldviews they may encounter outside of our company that could hinder their success.
• Challenge the status quo: The innovation that makes organizations like ours successful comes from being able to challenge the status quo. We must be intentional about having diverse perspectives at the table, allowing our teammates to be their authentic selves, empowering our leaders to build capability within their teams, and offering consistent support for the outcomes and efforts of our teams.
• Train staff and put that training into practice: Different team members are going to feel comfortable engaging in different forums and methodologies. That means making a multitude of options available but stressing that the end goal is to have everyone on the same page, no matter which program they choose. DE&I training should be mandatory, whether it’s at the personal level, team level, company-wide level, or all of the above. All programs should be formatted to accomplish the same goal so that company-wide implementation and practices are standardized, which also appreciating all of us are at different point in our journey.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

Executives have true, complete ownership of the strategic plan and, ultimately, the performance of the company — in the short-, mid-, and long-term. And with that comes the difficult decision-making requirements around what you will or won’t do.

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

The biggest myth is that CEOs know everything. A well-run company is operated by a collection of leaders who are aligned toward a singular mission, vision, and values. Having said that, the CEO is ultimately accountable, but he or she can be far more successful by gathering input from his/her team.

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

Whether it be gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation, I think there are always certain assumptions or biases that we, as humans, make about people. Personally, I encountered these a lot when I was a young professional with children. The assumption was that I couldn’t perform at the same level as a counterpart who didn’t have those obligations. I constantly had to advocate for myself more because colleagues assumed they were doing me a favor by not asking me to take the lead on certain initiatives.

But the truth is, all of us — gender aside — have other obligations. In my opinion, it’s all about having the conversation about whatever the assumption may be and addressing them head-on.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

I’ve been fortunate in that the path I took to get to this point gave me the gift of leading in so many roles, so I didn’t come into this one with any misconceptions about how difficult or easy it is to lead people and strategic business initiatives. Honestly, the surprise — in a good way — has been just how kind our culture is and how patient everyone is with my frequent questions as I continue to engage in different areas where I’m still learning.

Is everyone cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?

There are different kinds of executives, and it often depends on the company, the mission, and the vision. But overall, I am not a big fan of “laundry lists” citing very specific things one must do to be a good leader or a good CEO. Depending on what we’re talking about, there is a leadership role for everybody in something that makes sense for their unique skill set. I also think corporate America sometimes does a disservice to colleagues within certain cultures that somehow dictate that you must be a senior leader to be successful. That notion is absurd, as the value that subject matter experts bring to a company is certainly on par with senior leaders. I would go so far as to say many of the SMEs I’ve worked with over the years have added far more value than I have as a leader.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

I once had a mentor warn me that life, in general, gets messy — more often than you’d expect. So, it’s good to pay a little more attention to what it means to be a leader in messy times as opposed to how to lead when everything’s in a great space. Beyond that, I’m not a big one for revisiting the “woulda, coulda, shoulda.” I’m more interested in learning from mistakes — because you can’t go back and change them — making the best of them and finding some humor in them. There’s been a multitude of mistakes over the years, and they’ve all made me a better leader, so wishing them away is pointless. Mistakes have led me to be a more mindful leader!

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

Working in the pharmacy benefits industry, the biggest things I am passionate about are trying to do better by the people we serve, simplifying the healthcare processes for patients, cutting costs, and treating everyone fairly. I’m extremely lucky that I was able to join RxBenefits and use my position to put my passions into action.

So, I suppose the movement I would inspire would be to continue the work RxBenefits is doing to ensure our clients have the best pharmacy benefits possible.

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

I’d like to sit down with Marie Curie and have breakfast on the day she was awarded the Nobel Prize. She was not allowed to receive it; her husband had to accept it in her behalf because women were not acknowledged as being part of the scientific community. Talk about a pioneer! I’m a research biochemist at heart and the whole thing is just intriguing to me — I’d love to know how she and her husband decided upon his acceptance of the award. Was she bitter? Was she accepting? Did she understand that her research spoke for itself, despite not being recognized for it? Did she have male allies in the scientific community who saw the unfairness of the situation?

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

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Women Of The C-Suite: Wendy Barnes of RxBenefits On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Kelly Cox and Celia Castleman of Share the Drop On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“Thicken up’. We pitch this idea all the time; a lot of times to men who aren’t familiar with the practice of community milk sharing. We deal with questioning eyes, responses of ‘that sounds gross’, the list goes on and on. We have had to learn not to take any of this personally; we believe in our mission and when others don’t we just let that slide.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kelly Cox and Celia Castleman, Co-Founders of Share the Drop.

A registered prenatal yoga teacher and birth doula, Kelly has taught pre and perinatal yoga for 15 years. For a decade, she owned and operated the award-winning yoga studio, Bend: an essential institution in central Virginia that supported women through pregnancy, birth and parenthood. As a breast cancer survivor, Kelly has helped source human milk for other survivors. Supporting cancer survivors is one of her core motivations for founding The Drop.

A mother of three, Celia shared her excess milk supply with families who couldn’t produce enough milk for their infants. For the last eight years, she has collaborated with change makers, innovators and social entrepreneurs and served as Vice President of the Charlottesville National Organization for Women. From the insight and experience working with phenomenal leaders, Celia is ‘pumped’ to launch a start-up empowering women and families to inclusively care for one another.

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?

As a registered prenatal yoga teacher and birth doula, Kelly supported thousands of families through pregnancy, birth and parenthood. In her yoga studio, families connected over the trials and tribulations of pre/postpartum bodies, sleep training, partner relationships and of course, infant feeding. Taking note of her clients’ emotional wellbeing, Kelly realized that feeding newborns created a wave of stress, pressure and often led to postpartum depression. She held weekly free lactation support groups and regularly helped match local families with an excess supply of milk to families in need. And as a breast cancer survivor, she gave particular attention to fellow survivors sourcing milk for their infants.

One particular evening, Kelly was on her phone, scrolling through her contacts to source extra milk for a doula client when she received a text notification that she had “matched” with a prospective date. The idea for a mobile app to match human milk donors and recipients was born.

Pregnant with her third child and in a new town, Celia found a prenatal yoga studio for support as much as for the health benefits. She instantly clicked with her instructor, Kelly. Attending classes for the social aspect and kinship, Celia felt a strong sense of community and support. After the birth of her baby, Celia had an oversupply of milk and a freezer full of excess. She hopped on the internet and found a huge village (half a million members) of peer-to-peer milk donors and recipients.

While forming a sacred bond during pregnancy, birth and postpartum, Celia and Kelly set out to develop a solution to solve the disparities between infants with access to breast milk and those without.

A mother of three, Celia shared her excess milk supply with families who couldn’t produce enough milk for their infants. For the last eight years, she has collaborated with change makers, innovators and social entrepreneurs and served as Vice President of the Charlottesville National Organization for Women. From the insight and experience working with phenomenal leaders, Celia is ‘pumped’ to launch a start-up empowering women and families to inclusively care for one another.

Major medical authorities including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, and the World Health Organization recommend exclusively feeding human milk to infants for the first 6 months of life. And yet, in the United States, only 25% of babies are. That number hasn’t changed in over two decades. What has changed is a more challenging and difficult circumstance new parents are faced with: the necessity for both caregivers to return to work shortly after the baby has arrived, hormonal disorders, breast cancer, mental health issues, among many more.

We know that human milk is the gold standard for infant health and nutrition. We know that some lactating mothers produce more supply than just their own infant can consume. We know that wet nursing, first recorded in 3000 BCE, has sustained our civilization from the beginning. And yet, fraught with politics, even breastfeeding has been shamed and shunned. We also know that our world continues to change. We’ve lived through a Global Pandemic, droughts, wildfires, and other emergencies. Human milk has continued to sustain even the most vulnerable premature babies. We can’t think of a more crucial time for our take on a modern-day wet nursing revival.

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

We know that feeding infants has taken two paths in the U.S. for decades: breastfeeding or formula feeding. As more and more research has proven the benefits of breastfeeding, we are still in a position in which infant formula is the go-to for families. Enter 2022 and we have been dealing with contaminations in infant formula, followed by a shortage that left many families unable to find formula to feed their infants.

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?

After an exhaustive search, we finally found an app developer we were comfortable with. All ‘meetings’ were in the height of Covid so some days we found ourselves working out of one of our homes, in a coffee shop, etc. and we realized, like the rest of the world, we could work from anywhere. Kelly had a rough year with losses and major life changes and took off on a one-way ticket to Mexico. She never missed a meeting, tried to hide the palm trees behind her during Zoom calls, but distance was never an issue. One morning in the Fall of 2021, the entire development team was set to meet for the first time; we were excited and so eager. Kelly was on a small island at that time; got up early to walk out for coffee only to find the entire island was out of power; no way to connect to Zoom, no way to call or text to let Celia know what was happening. Seven hours later she was finally able to reach Celia to let her know she had in fact not been kidnapped, etc.

Needless to say, scheduling important team meetings while on a remote island is probably not the best idea.

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?

(Kelly) My mentors have always been the families I have worked with; I saw them struggle being able to feed their babies, return to work, maintain relationships when their world revolved around being parents. They are exactly why I started to think about ways to help.

We of course have a fantastic board of advisors who share our mission; two of them mothers who work full-time and have shared their struggles with feeding and donating their excess milk.

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?

Community milk sharing is not a new concept; it has been happening informally for years and Facebook has groups dedicated to this mission for the last decade. We have seen families attempt to share or receive on these antiquated systems and simply wanted to offer an immediate, in real time and in their neighborhoods solution.

You can go on a dating app and immediately meet someone to date, you can order an Uber and jump in a car with a stranger; we are offering the same option yet due to that nature of doing something that is a ‘new’ concept for most people, we continue to face rejection. Being rejected by Apple has only made us fight harder to get this to market and realize we can do this ourselves and do not have to cower to the power players.

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

‘Stay the course’. We have struggled getting Apple to approve this mission; we just kept resubmitting and standing our ground. When we received their last rejection, we started building a web app. We will not soften our mission, we will simply just repivot.

“Thicken up’. We pitch this idea all the time; a lot of times to men who aren’t familiar with the practice of community milk sharing. We deal with questioning eyes, responses of ‘that sounds gross’, the list goes on and on. We have had to learn not to take any of this personally; we believe in our mission and when others don’t we just let that slide.

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

After attempting to get approval from Apple we simply walked away and had to recreate an approach that will allow this to get to market. A web app can give as much functionality as a mobile app and at the end of the day makes us even more inclusive. We have received messages from families stating they do not have a smartphone, or computer and have to rely on public access (libraries, WIC offices, etc.). This allows us to serve even more families and we would not have gone down that road if we hadn’t been rejected by Apple.

We are quickly investing more time and money to get this to market as soon as possible.

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

We have to prove ourselves more; we have to make a lot more noise to be heard. We haven’t developed a simple new gadget that we can pump out to the masses. We are creating a new option for families that is tied to a lot of opinions. The act of constantly having to educate others on the history of community milk sharing has been exhausting.

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. 🙂

No one is focusing on the issue of how access to human milk affects so many. Not only is It difficult for many women to breastfeed, we have left so many people out in terms of options on how to feed their children. As a breast cancer survivor (Kelly), I have been committed to helping other survivors gain access to human milk. This application can also offer gay couples, adoptive parents, those who use a surrogate, family members who are raising infants to have access as well. We are very proud of this.

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

‘It takes a village to raise the village’. We have devoted our careers to building community. Life is hard, we have both witnessed how much easier it is when we live in community and take care of each other. This knowledge has been at the heart of the work we are doing.

How can our readers follow you online?

• Go to our website, www.sharethedrop.com; enter email address to sign up for our newsletter updates
• Follow us on social media: Instagram @sharethedrop

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShareTheDrop/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharethedrop

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sharethedrop/

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

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Female Disruptors: Kelly Cox and Celia Castleman of Share the Drop On The Three Things You Need To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.