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Women In Wellness: Catherine Magee of Playground On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Destigmatize your own thoughts. We like to say “nice girls finish first” as a reminder, a call-to-action, that you can and should focus on your sexual pleasure. Men definitely do and women should too.

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

Catherine Magee has created a career from launching aspirational brands and products designed intentionally for women. Catherine is a former Executive for Rodan + Fields, one of today’s largest global skincare companies and has held various Sr. and Vice President level marketing roles at fast-growing community driven beauty companiese like bareMinerals and theBalm Cosmetics. As Co-founder of Playground, Catherine uses her passion for creating exceptional brands to build a company centered around women and their intimate needs — one that makes every women feel more confident, beautiful, and empowered to improve her sexual experiences 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?

Prior to starting Playground, I spent over 15 years in the beauty industry. I had the fortune of working for some of the most exciting and fast-growing beauty brands in recent history, including bareMinerals, Buxom, Rodan+Fields and theBalm Cosmetics. I’ve always loved creating good-for-you, intentional products for women. I love experiencing how great products can lift someone’s spirit and make them feel good about themselves. The personal lubricant brands today are either too clinical or too masculine — they make women feel bad about using these products instead of celebrated for taking care of their sexual wellness. Our philosophy at Playground is to make products that perform as good as the best skincare product and elicit joy like a favorite cosmetic product. My passion for creating better sexual wellness products exceed anything I’ve ever done in my career. I feel that the last 15+ years of experiences and learnings were for the sole purpose of starting Playground.

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

My most interesting stories all occurred the first year I had my son because I was determined to perfectly balance motherhood with work. I mean, I went into labor at 5am on a Friday morning and insisted that I complete a presentation before letting my husband drive me to the hospital. I’ve had a babysitter cancel 30 minutes before an important investor meeting and had to beg a friend to stroll around my child during the meeting. I’ve spent nights in the pediatric emergency room to come back and start work at 1am. While these intentions were noble, they were neither good examples nor sustainable. Women and mothers are amazingly efficient multi-taskers — that’s why we make the most productive contributors. Unlike so many corporations today, I believe these experiences make women an asset in the workforce. I want Playground and all women-led companies to demonstrate that if you give people purpose, autonomy and flexibility to collectively and creatively meet a common vision, they can lead better and happier personal and professional lives.

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?

I’ve made many mistakes over the years, but I’m not embarrassed to admit it! We all make mistakes, but if we don’t identify them, analyze them and grow from them, we don’t become better managers, leaders or people. At one of my first beauty companies, I was considered a hard worker and high achiever. However, when you work for a fast-growing rocketship, you believe your unique efforts are successful when in reality the company is already on a successful trajectory. It wasn’t until I moved to a smaller company that I realized just how hard it is to create a business and all the mistakes that happen. Building new things is trial and error and mistakes will happen. Acknowledging those mistakes and admitting them to your team takes vulnerability, but it helps build more open and honest relationships with your team, colleagues and investors.

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?

What’s been missing in the overall health and wellness conversation is the role of sexual health and intimacy. We’ve been trained to think of sex as just intercourse, but, it has a huge impact on our intimate connections, physical health and mental well-being. Over 80% of women experience some kind of sexual health issue today from pain with intercourse to lack of or poor arousal. The list goes on. Playground’s mission is to create content and conversations to shed light on these topics and challenges. We do this through our Sex and Wellness Council and our Sex and the Psyche blog. We have big plans coming in 2023 that will launch pad these conversations at scale to remove all stigma around sexual pleasure and health. Around the world, women are vilified or shamed for their female sexuality. We believe that by encouraging women to learn and talk about these issues, the more it will improve the wellness and livelihood of women everywhere.

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. Destigmatize your own thoughts. We like to say “nice girls finish first” as a reminder, a call-to-action, that you can and should focus on your sexual pleasure. Men definitely do and women should too.
  2. Don’t vilify normal sexual pleasure and wellness issues. The most common statement we hear from women is a slightly defensive “I don’t need to use lube. I have plenty of moisture.” Every woman experiences dryness at some time point every month. Having dryness is as normal as having periods, babies and menopause. Also, personal lubricant helps women increase pleasure…it’s not just about dryness.
  3. Believe that sex is an essential part of your overall wellness. Simliar to how we don’t invest in our mental health until our stress overwhelms us, we do not focus on ways to improve your sex life before it becomes an issue. A continuously satisfying sex life will improve your long-term libido, your personal relationship and your mood.
  4. Sex for breakfast. This is the title of a great song by Christina Aguilera, but it’s also good advice! Try introducing sex in the morning. It will kick start your mind, mood and day.
  5. Don’t suffer in silence. We’ve conducted surveys and interviews with over 10,000 women to learn about their sexual frustrations and sexual health challenges. We were shocked to learn that the majority of all women suffer from some kind of sexual issue, especially postpartum and menapausal women. Join our conversations and share your stories with Playground by following us at @hello.playground.

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

A movement that champions all women to invest in their sexual experiences for themselves. Bumble has a great saying — they say their app puts women in the drivers seat of their sexual relationships. Now millions of women take the first step in introducing themselves to a partner on their terms. At Playground, we want to do the same for sexual intimacy and empower millions of women to own their female sexuality and experiences on their terms.

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

  1. When the going gets tough, have grit.
  2. When stress kicks in, my Co-Founder and I say, “don’t think, just do.” Even repeating it over and over is very helpful because it will force you to put one foot in front of the other and “just do”.
  3. Don’t wait for someone to congratulate and encourage you. If you are building something new, most people won’t see it or understand it.
  4. When someone is trying to discourage you, don’t take it personally. Trust in yourself.
  5. Exercise. I always feel better after I exercise, but in very busy moments I tend to de-prioritize this even though I know I shouldn’t. Health and wellness is so important and I encourage all of my employees to find the time to do this anytime of the 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?

Mental health because if we don’t have good mental health we can’t begin to focus on solving any of these other issues, and so many other ones.

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

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

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

Women In Wellness: Catherine Magee of Playground 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.