Brand Yourself

Welcome back to another #OnTheRise conversation— If you’re new here, #OnTheRise is an interview series with early-stage entrepreneurs who are experiencing significant success within the first few years of launching their brands. I created this series to give you a peek at the decisions, intuitive guidance, and strategy that have empowered young business-owners to grow quicker than most. And today’s #OnTheRise guest is Elsa Valentine. Elsa is the co-founder of Innate Food, a UK-born collection of vegan superfood crackers. Ignited by her own health transformation as a teenager, Elsa wondered why all humans are not innately connected to the foods they need to thrive. And why the majority chose to eat processed foods, which are essentially accumulative poison. Later in life, it became her mission to create a healthy snack that not only contains superfood ingredients but also brings people the sensory euphoria that would keep them coming back for more— making it easy and delicious to choose something healthy over

Jamie Graber is the founder of Organically Jamie, where she works as an Integrative Life Coach and meditation teacher to help clients discover their best selves by releasing old patterns and belief systems. As a self-proclaimed “mindset shifter”, her method brings together energy, kundalini, meditation, and breathwork with the principles of talk therapy to dig into the subconscious mind to initiate healing and transformation. As the former owner of Gingersnaps Organic Cafe, Jamie has become something of a shapeshifter herself after realizing that her true calling came not in food, but in personal growth and spirituality. Jamie believes movement and meditation are the tools that get us into the quiet enough to tap into the signs from within to break old habits and achieve the life we want. Her work has been featured in Well+Good, Mind Body Green, Refinery29, The New York Times, and more. Jamie and I first met at her amazing café at A Course in Miracles talks, and then later at a retreat where she shared her in

Samara Zelniker is the founder of Mindfulness Matters, a platform dedicated to empowering leaders to reach their infinite potential. She’s been featured as a leadership expert in Forbes, Business Insider, and Focus TV. With over a decade of experience teaching yoga, meditation and mindfulness, she incorporates tools in Eastern ancient wisdom and modern Western science to help you individuals and businesses thrive. Through a curated and personalized program, Samara works with her clients to highlight innate talents and nourish a practical application of core strengths. As a result, clients are guided towards a deeper understanding of self, and a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment. This is done through 1:1 coaching, management training, team off-sites and international retreats. In this episode, Samara shares the sequence of unusual events that led Samara to fall in love with yoga, become a teacher, and start Mindfulness Matters, her bold decision to shift from a career in fashion to a brand new one in we

Aarona Lea is the author of the intuitive oracle set 'The Moon Deck' which has reached thousands of women globally and been featured in publications like Goop, Well+Good, MindBodyGreen and others. As an entrepreneur for the past 20 years, she has a depth of experience in the realms of meditation, yoga, intuitive ritual, alternative therapies and more. She leverages her experience and training to facilitate empowering workshops and trainings and leads sacred circles and retreats worldwide, offers private & group Intuitive Oracle Readings. Beginning her healing path as a child, this curiosity about emotional health & intuition began a life-long journey of study, practice, & ritual where she explored the shadowy depths of healing trauma, recovered from chronic bulimia, and is now helping to normalize conversations around emotional and spiritual wellbeing. In our conversation, we chat about her journey to healing from bulimia through her yoga practice, and why she felt inspired to both become a yoga t

Joanne Schneider is the Co-Founder and Head of Product at Kindbody, a network of beautiful tech-enabled fertility and wellness clinics designed to improve access and convenience for women’s healthcare. With locations in New York City, LA, and San Francisco. Aside from being one of the first to create a one-stop-destination of this nature for women, Kindbody also builds all of their own software in-house to reduce the cost of care for their patients and modernize the experience. Joanne has been leading product and engineering teams her whole career starting at Google in the Bay Area, and most recently at Flatiron Health, a cancer technology company. Joanne and I had this conversation at the end of 2019 way before COVID-19 became a worldwide pandemic. What’s amazing is that in New York City, fertility care has been deemed an essential healthcare service, so KindBody’s clinic has remained open and actively seeing patients. They also offer virtual consultations. Which means that women who are still on their ferti

Jenny Sansouci is the author of The Rebel's Apothecary: A Practical Guide To The Healing Magic of Cannabis, CBD, and Mushrooms. She's a certified Health Coach and creator of the wellness blog Healthy Crush, where she's been writing since 2008. Jenny is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and has been trained by functional medicine doctor Frank Lipman, MD in New York City. She is based in Brooklyn, New York. Jenny and I have known each other since 2011 when I started working at IIN. And we became friends through IIN’s Ambassador/Affiliate program— something that was a core part of my job there. I remember feeling so in awe of the life she’d created for herself, blogging fulltime and living with so much freedom. Ever since, I’ve watched her grow and expand and deepen her love for plants and their medicinal magic. I was so incredibly moved by her relationship with her dad and how she’s showed up for him as he’s navigated Pancreatic cancer. In this episode, she shares how she got her start blogg

Throughout her career, Kristin McGee has been a pioneer in making yoga more accessible. She helped launch the Peloton yoga program and is currently instructing with them. She’s also starred in over 100 yoga and pilates videos including MTV workout videos, Bethenny Frankel workout Videos and her own personal brand of yoga DVD’s. She has privately trained celebrities and has written books about the value of yoga in everyday life. She has appeared on Live with Kelly and Ryan, Good Morning America, The Today Show and has been featured in Health, Shape, Vogue, and Women’s Health. As a busy mom of three boys, Kristin strongly believes that just a few minutes of yoga a day can bring more balance and harmony to your life. Kristin’s classes will ground you, challenge you to focus on the moment and connect your mind, body and breath. Kristin and I have known each other—mostly from afar for years. As you’ll hear in the episode, she is incredibly kind, genuine, and a total open book. And I’ve admired the way she brings h

Kelly Leveque is a holistic nutritionist, wellness expert, and celebrity health coach based in Los Angeles, California. Her business Be Well by Kelly grew out of Kelly's lifelong passion for health, the science of nutrition and overall wellness.  Guided by a practical and always optimistic approach, she helps clients improve their health, achieve their goals and develop sustainable habits to live a healthy and balanced life. She is extremely passionate about the science of human nutrition, and studies the latest research, evaluates competing theories and reads everything which has always put her ahead of wellness trends before they’re in the media. Prior to starting her business, she in the medical field for Fortune 500 companies like J&J, Stryker, and Hologic, eventually moving into personalized medicine, offering tumor gene mapping and molecular subtyping to oncologists. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and completed her Post Graduate Clinical Nutrition educa

Jessie De Lowe is a manifestation coach, art therapist, certified yoga instructor and Co-Founder of the lifestyle + wellness platform How You Glow. She has dedicated much of her life to the study and practice of alternative healing and now helps others enrich their lives through an array of therapeutic mediums. Jesse leads by example, living a high-vibration, love-filled existence with her family by the sea. She is passionate about guiding others to do the same, to find their own version of bliss and soul alignment through her offerings. And she is also the host of a relationship + love podcast called Madly Forever. In the episode, she shares how she found her way to art therapy, manifestation work, and co-creating the popular content platform, the adorable story about how she met her How You Glow co-founder Tara Sowlaty, the little wins that put their brand on the map and why it had nothing to do with a strategy, why she has always taken a “relaxed hustle” approach to business building and what that looks li

Gabby Bernstein is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Universe Has Your Back and has written six additional bestsellers, including Super Attractor which just launched in September 2019. She was featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as a “next-generation thought leader” and The Oprah Winfrey Network chose Gabrielle to be part of the “Super Soul 100” a dynamic group of 100 trailblazers whose vision and life’s work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world. The New York Times identified her as “a new role model.” She appears regularly as an expert on The Dr. Oz Show and co-hosted the Guinness World Record largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra. Additionally, Gabrielle has been featured in media outlets such as ELLE, OWN, TODAY, Marie Claire, Health, SELF, Women’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the covers of Success Magazine, Experience Life Magazine and more. So, I came across Gabby Bernstein back in 2008 while reading an article in the New York Times. But I didn’t fully get i

Dara Dubinet is a raw food expert and popular YouTube host turned lifestyle intuitive. Using the magic of astrogeography, the north node, and her intuitive hits, she helps her clients navigate everything from career choices to life purpose to relationships to choosing the perfect location on the planet to live and thrive. She’s the creator of two powerful life navigation tools: Astrogeography (the astrology of place) and Life Direction, which anyone can purchase online. Her work has been featured in Glamour Magazine, Departures Magazine, on the Balanced Blonde podcast, and the Expanded podcast with Lacy Phillips. As someone who has been a lover of astrology since I was a pre-teen, I was excited to learn something so interesting from Dara—that our north node is a huge asset in clarifying life purpose and that where you live impacts your ability to live our your life purpose. As you’ll hear, Dara is such a wealth of knowledge about this and she was kind enough to show her work in action by sharing insight about

Paula Mallis is the founder of WMN Space, an LA-based healing oasis and gathering space for women. Her expertise as a doula, a facilitator of women circles, along with her extensive training in Spiritual Psychology, inspired her to create an environment where women are supported on their own unique journey to cultivate their intuition and more. WMN Space has been featured in the New York Times, Goop, Well & Good, Chalkboard Mag, Vogue, and others. As you’ll hear, Paula built a thriving business without a strategy. Instead, she leaned completely into her spiritual practice and intuitive guidance to make every decision. Over and over again, she tuned in and took action until WMN Space became what it is today. In this episode, she shares why birthing her daughter was the catalyst to her shifting from a career as an actress and model to personal growth entrepreneur, what it looked like for her to start building a community for women and how this passion project grew beyond the walls of her living room into it

Heidi Kristoffer is an award-winning actress turned yoga revolutionary. She’s a mom of three, the mastermind behind CrossFlowX™, the creator and producer of Microsoft Bing Fitness Yoga & MSN Yoga, a National Athleta Ambassador, and wellness expert for and contributor to multiple publications and platforms. Her goal is to make yoga, inversions, health, strength, and whole, happy living accessible to everyone. She is excited to continue this mission with her most recent baby, CrossFlow: Yoga with Heidi Kristoffer, an app and online forum that allows everyone around the world, from yoga newbie to seasoned pro, to practice with Heidi's healing-centered yoga methods. She’s been rated one of the Hottest Trainers in America by Shape Magazine, one of the most inspiring yoga teachers in the world by DoYouYoga, and one of the most popular instructors in NYC by RateYourBurn and ClassPass. In our conversation, we chat about why leaning more into her love for yoga from day one created serendipitous opportunities—like

Welcome back to another episode of my mini-series, #OnTheRise, where I feature an entrepreneur in the early stages of business building to give you insight into how they achieved significant growth and success. And today we have the amazing Jess Suchan joining us. Jess is a Holistic Health & Wellness Coach who guides her clients to find a life of bliss, free from fad diets, over-exercising, and burnout. She believes that in order to change our habits we must address the “holistic picture” and compassionately investigate how all areas of our lives are interconnected. Jess spent over a decade yo-yo dieting, exercising for punishment and ignoring the messages her body was sending her. This lifestyle coupled with a slew of stressful jobs, led her to develop debilitating migraines which she eventually cured with a holistic approach. When she discovered the power of food and lifestyle as medicine, she decided to become a health coach via the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and dedicate her time to helping o

Sarah Larson & Mason Levey are the co-founders of the New York-based fitness hot spot, Y7 Studio which has 13 locations around the country. After many years of struggling to find a yoga class that she loved, these two put their heads together and decided to invent a fitness experience that broke down the traditional barriers of yoga. Their classes combine 60-minutes of intensity with heat and strength, complemented by deep breathing to calm the mind--all while set to the latest beats (think A Tribe Called Quest, Cardi B, Frank Ocean). The other element making it accessible and inclusive? All classes take place in a dark room with zero mirrors to eliminate the distraction of physical comparison. Because of their devotion to a great customer experience, these two have built a multi-million dollar company that has been called one of the fastest-growing fitness boutiques in the country and ranked in the top 100 of Inc’s annual 5000 list. They’ve also gotten press from Forbes, Vogue, Bazaar, Shape, InStyle, Re

Cameron Rogers is a very freckled 28-year-old living in NYC with a big appetite for all things food. After working on Wall Street for 5 years, she decided it was time to wave goodbye to the corporate world and pursue her blog, Freckled Foodie full-time. Since then, she’s worked with notable companies on creating content, dozens of individuals to achieve a healthier and more balanced lifestyle and developed her personality as a podcast host on Freckled Foodie & Friends. She was named one of the five entrepreneurs changing New York’s wellness scene by Forbes. On her website, Instagram, and podcast (Freckled Foodie & Friends), Cameron makes a conscious effort to show you the truth of her health journey, without a filtered lens. In a world that often feels too curated and inauthentic, she is challenging the status quo that people need a pristine kitchen or a perfect blowout to make a delicious meal. All you need is your precious time, fresh ingredients, and the determination to feed your body what it dese

Satya Scainetti is the founder and designer of the global wellness brand, Satya Jewelry. As a philanthropist, yoga teacher, and Reiki healer, she’s has integrated her three loves--spirituality, yoga, and giving back--into one beautiful business. What started as a jewelry company, has grown into a multi-million dollar consciousness-raising empire that creates adornments and experiences that connect people with their truth, and makes the world a better place. Her background in social work and her passion for early childhood education sparked the creation of the Satya Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides children all over the world with hope, change and the opportunity to fulfill their destinies. So, if you couldn’t already tell, Satya is an incredible human. Not only has she been an entrepreneur for two decades, but she created the very first yoga-inspired jewelry line in the U.S. And continues to build her business with so much wisdom and instinct. I’ve admired her from afar for years and am so

Alison Wu is the stylist, recipe developer and lifestyle blogger behind Wu Haus. Since starting her blog in 2016 as an outlet to share her passions, she has received international recognition for her vibrant dishes and warm aesthetic. Named by Well + Good as one of the next gen of wellness, Alison also loves to curate and host national and international events, retreats and experiences that promote wellness in mind, body and spirit. She frequently partners with creatives and companies whose values align with her own and has collaborated with brands like Williams Sonoma, HAY Design, Anthropologie, Mountain Rose Herbs and Sustain. In the episode, she shares the moment she got the idea for a green ombre smoothie and how her gorgeous layered creations made her an instant IG star, how she turned her blog and IG following into her full-time gig—something that wasn’t as linear as it might’ve looked, her current thoughts on social media, why she thinks it’s so important to create healthy boundaries, and how she does

After years of using severe prescription acne treatments, Priscilla Tsai realized that traditional approaches to fighting skin concerns were unsustainable, unhealthy, and stigmatizing. Instead, she wanted to find a solution that would create long-term yet gentle results for her skin, mind, and body. After tackling her hormonal acne with superfoods instead of chemicals, she quite literally made her own solution and left her job on Wall Street. Cocokind was then born in 2015. In the episode, Priscilla shares why her struggle with acne from her teenage years to her early 20’s prompted her to start making her own skincare products, her experience with imposter syndrome and why she didn’t let it stop her from launching her skincare brand, which is now a multi-million dollar company, what it was like to leave behind her high-paying job on Wall Street and move to San Francisco to start bootstrapping Cocokind, why she says nurturing and loving up her customers and audience is the number one reason she’s been able

Natalie Zises is a Binge & Diet Recovery Coach who specializes in helping women let go of the diet-binge cycle and find peace around food for life. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Natalie since 2017 when she enrolled in my business mentorship program Your Wellness Brand. In this episode, we chat about how she’s worked with over 40 clients in just the first year and a half in business—and how she’s hit 6 figures in 2019, she shares why she shifted from a career as a chef to a coach and the role her own struggles with her body played in that decision, the many wise investments she made along the way in mentors, coaches, education and more to build her business, how she dealt with her family’s disapproval when she started being more vulnerable online and why standing strong in her vision for her brand was key to moving past their push back, the ways she continues to stay true to herself and why owning her style is what makes her brand magnetic and relatable to her target audience, and so much more!   To lea