Women In Wellness: Mary Pat Wallace of the Luxury Bed Collection On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Invest in a quality mattress made with natural materials. Shop various brands, get educated and experience the comfort and support that is right for you!
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary Pat Wallace.
Mary Pat Wallace, founder and principal of the Luxury Bed Collection, has been in the sleep and mattress industry for over 20 years. She is a proud business owner and entrepreneur who strives to teach the public and her clients about the importance of quality sleep.
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 roots as a design entrepreneur go back to 1991, when I founded my first venture, MP and Associates Inc., a contract furniture manufacturer focused on the financial industry. Having gained experience early on in career in design, furnishings, and the luxury-to-trade market while working at Holly Hunt, I combined my intimate understanding of the design and manufacturing world with my expertise in client service to bring creative solutions to office design.
Balancing entrepreneurship with home life proved even more challenging, however. As a young businessperson and mother, I found myself struggling with lack of sleep — a problem I knew I had to remedy in order to fulfill both of my passions. Following my friend’s recommendation as well as my own research, I visited the famed European mattress manufacturer Hästens, where I realized the impact a perfectly fitted mattress of exceptional quality can have on restorative sleep. As a design industry veteran, I recognized the value of the bed as the most important piece of furniture in the home; a place where we spend one-third of our lives, and a key element for optimum health and productivity. Having witnessed firsthand that the right mattress is critical to a deeply restful night of sleep, I and my then-husband, Andy Wallace, brought that experience and my unique expertise to the luxury market in Chicago, opening the first Hästens retail store in North America in 2005, now known as The Luxury Bed Collection.
We continued to evolve with our success as the company became known for our curated mattress and sleep solutions specifically tailored to fit the needs of the individual consumer. Adding to the Chicago showroom, my brand expanded into new markets with locations in Dallas and Naples.
Committed to sourcing the highest-quality, bespoke mattresses and sleep products from across the globe, my team of experts and I have spent the last 20 years helping clients transform their lives through sleep.
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?
After 25 years, the stories stack up! The biggest lesson learned was managing through the great recession of 2009. In 2008, we had two Hastens stores — one in Chicago and one in Winnetka. By January 2009 our traffic and sales stopped. We had fixed expenses that could not be reduced. We had two landlords that refused to reduce our rent. We had other Hästens retailers who owned substantial inventory which they were selling online at a 50% discount and Hästens could do nothing to help us. With the help of my Vistage group, my accountant, and a magnificent attorney we were able to manage through the crisis and build back a stronger business. Having seasoned professionals in your inner circle are key to helping a business pivot in crisis.
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?
Underestimating the time and money it takes to build an unknown luxury brand in Chicago and the US.
Based on the research I had done I expected sales to grow much faster than reality. I quickly learned that having a superior product and two beautiful stores with trained passionate sales associates does not equate to high revenue and profits. Brands take time to build. The luxury consumer needs to be educated on the value of a luxury product or experience and then it needs to be accepted culturally. If you are building a brand, you need twice as much money and twice as much time as your most conservative plan.
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 goal is to educate consumers on the importance of sleep and how the right mattress can improve the quality of your sleep. This goal was created after meeting the Ryde family (Founders of Hästens Beds) in Koping Sweden. In my 20’s working for Holly Hunt, ltd. I had the opportunity to tour the most exclusive factories of the luxury home furnishings brands. That education taught me the value of using the most exclusive materials, built by generations of craftsman whose pride and goal was to create products of legacy. The Hästens family did exactly that, for 170 years this family has been building the best beds in the world. Why? To improve lives through great sleep!
My team and I have been preaching the value of investing in a great mattress for 20 years. The science and research show, sleep is the number one determinate to a long and healthy life, more than diet and exercise. Yet people spend thousands of dollars on luxury health club memberships, personal trainers, and organic food to then unravel all that investment by not getting the proper sleep at night.
Covid got the conversation started! People were home, not traveling, and were sleeping in the same bed every night. Quickly, the world woke up and said no more bad sleep. Our phone began ringing off the hook asking us to open the store during quarantine. Every headline was about our health, how to stay healthy, how to build and maintain a healthy immune system, and manage the mental health challenges that accompany a pandemic. SLEEP IS THE ANSWER!!
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.
My top lifestyle tweaks are directly correlated with sleep and a “sleep routine.” There are many tips that I’ve picked up along my 20-year journey in the sleep industry and these five have always stuck with me.
- Cut back on caffeine as much as possible and try to stop caffeine consumption before noon. From my favorite book on sleep Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, he explains the reasoning behind ridding yourself of that afternoon cup. “Caffeine has an average half-life of 5–7 hours,” I often quote from Walker, “meaning 50% of that caffeine may still be active up to seven hours after consumption.”
- Don’t consume alcohol in the evenings. As much as I love to have a glass of wine in the evening, it is a terrible disruptor to our sleep pattern.
- Commit to a mindfulness practice before bed. Anything like meditation, breathing exercises, or reading a few pages of a book can help let your mind release stressors from the day.
- Turn off any screens at least an hour before your head hits the pillow. From a phone light all the way to a streetlight coming in through your blinds, all light can disrupt our sleep pattern, so be sure to block these out as much as possible that hour before sleep and continue through the night.] In addition, reduce light levels in your home by using dimmers, this allows the production of melatonin.
- Invest in a quality mattress made with natural materials. Shop various brands, get educated and experience the comfort and support that is right for you!
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
That sleep is wellness. Our society, especially in the United States, is built around this idea of deprioritizing sleep in order to achieve other goals throughout our daily lives, but this is a harmful mindset. Our mental performance, physical performance, and overall health are dramatically affected by how well we sleep. It is very rare that anyone can properly function off of less than 8 hours of sleep per night. If I could start a movement, it would be to treat sleep the same way we treat drinking enough water each day or eating vegetables or exercising — sleep is a vital necessity to well-being and longevity.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Sustainability is incredibly important to me and it’s one of the main ideas I built my business around. Often I’m asked, “Why invest this much money in a mattress?” And my answer is always, you spend 2,920 hours per year in your bed. Invest in something that will make those hours spent worth it, but also something that will last, something that can withstand the test of time. The fewer mattresses that go into the landfill a year, the better, but TLBC’s products are also all-natural and full recyclable, so when the time comes for a new mattress, our mattresses won’t be contributing to further waste. I want to put quality, sustainable products in my showrooms to support this belief.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
The Luxury Bed Collection’s website (www.theluxurybedcollection.com) is a great way to keep up with new releases that come through the TLBC showroom.
You can also follow us on Instagram @theluxurybedcollection where any media appearances (fireside chats, virtual conferences dedicated to sleep, or recent articles) are also highlighted, along with company updates.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Women In Wellness: Mary Pat Wallace of the Luxury Bed Collection On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.