Women In Wellness: Ashley Sumner Of Quilt On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
… Be honest with yourself about what you love doing and what you hate doing. At the beginning, you’ll probably have to do it all, but when you can, hire people to do the things you hate doing.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Sumner.
Ashley Sumner is the CEO & Founder of Quilt, an uplifting social app to find community through fun, genuine conversations. Her startup career began 12 years ago in NYC as a community builder, connecting people through experiences. She now lives in Los Angeles, like every other New Yorker.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
My passion has led me to a career in connecting people through experiences. I’ve been a performer, a matchmaker, and a community builder at NeueHouse and Wanderlust. All of this paved the way for me to launch my company, Quilt. Quilt is an uplifting social app that welcomes people to jump into conversations in a fun and creative way, and find their community.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
At the end of last year, I got sick. As a result, my capacity to work and my usual working hours decreased. While I was still the hopeful, curious person I naturally am, I also experienced a tidal wave of fearful emotions that were distracting. My first instinct was to keep my illness to myself; not tell investors, advisors, or my team. I realized this was something I didn’t want to perpetuate in my company, so instead, I opened up and allowed the people closest to me to step in and support.
The takeaways? Not only did I get to rewire my understanding of what support could look like, but my company thrived in a way it wasn’t before. I was able to focus on the most important aspects of my business and lean on my team to do the things they are already talented at.
Letting go of control is a difficult thing for us to do. For me, it’s been a mechanism I developed to survive and I want so much more than survival in my life.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
It’s less of a story and more of a growth journey to get to where I am today. As a community builder, I assumed I’d be great at hiring my team at Quilt. Early on, I didn’t get some things right like being specific in who I needed to hire in order to achieve company goals. Some of that was from not knowing enough about a certain role like engineering or meeting people who I wanted to be the right fit and moving too quickly.
The lesson I learned is to hire slowly: ask advisors for support to interview candidates, call more references, and explicitly state what success looks like when someone joins my team. Going the extra length and moving slower can feel risky, but now have an amazing team so it’s all been worth it.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
As a society, most adults don’t have support in life’s most stressful moments whether at work, in love, in health, with our identity. As a child, I went through a lot alone. I spent my teens and 20s searching for ways to feel better — yoga, meditation, journaling, all of it. It wasn’t until I found myself in community, having supportive conversations and having fun with others, that I started to actually feel better.
When we start to feel good, we show up differently for ourselves, others, and our planet. I created Quilt so that people can be in constant community and feel better, together.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
- Take calls instead of zoom meetings if you can. It’s often easier to let ideas flow while you walk and talk. If you can’t, make time to walk — even if it’s only around the block.
- Set an intention each morning and check in with yourself throughout the day.
- Pull a card — tarot, oracle, inspirational quotes, whatever you like as a prompt to get creative, or have a good laugh. I was given this deck called Spiritual AF and they are so fun to read.
- Listen to your body. If you feel something is off, listen and dig deeper.
- Hop on Quilt and listen in to a conversation! I find my days feel more fulfilling when I quilt than when I don’t.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I’d like to start a movement around the statement crying is cool. I’m someone who proudly cries a lot. I feel like we’ve been told that crying is weak and only happens when we’re sad, but that’s not true. I’ve laughed so hard I started crying, I’ve cried happy tears. Openly shared tears bond us and I think that’s kinda cool.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Take time daily to be in nature or get creative. It helps you and also helps your company. You need this in order to think and feel, exponentially.
- Get comfortable having direct conversations. You can be compassionate, while still being direct.
- Be honest with yourself about what you love doing and what you hate doing. At the beginning, you’ll probably have to do it all, but when you can, hire people to do the things you hate doing.
- Perfection is not real, execution is.
- If you’re not sleeping well, make that your top priority. It has a trickle-down effect on everything you do in your day.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
I’ve always been an advocate for mental health and am passionate about increasing access to support and resources for all people. There’s a stigma around mental health that I’m starting to see lessen as more people become aware of their own mental health. At large, the world is disconnected and lonely. If we heal humanity, we heal the planet.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
You can follow @wearequlit on Instagram or TikTok.
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Women In Wellness: Ashley Sumner Of Quilt On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.