Pursuit of Wellness - Answering Your Questions (What’s Actually Going On)

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Ep. #69 Join me for a final update before I leave for Austin. This last month has been filled with a lot of life changing moments and I’m excited to share them all with you. From exciting new business ventures, to moving cross-country - we’ll talk life updates and remembering to set time to reflect amidst the chaos!  Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! Show Links: Go to earthbreeze.com/pow to get started with 40% off Earth Breeze Eco Sheets! Use code POW at Naturalcycles.com to get 15% off an annual subscription + a free thermometer or go to https://naturalcycles.app/POW Natural Cycles is for 18+ and does not protect against STIs Topics Discussed: 00:30 - Mari’s life changing month 01:54 - Bloom partnership with Nutrabolt  04:50 - Moving to Austin 12:32 - Taking Time to Reflect & Set Intention 14:38 - Work Life Balance 18:28 - Sharing on Social Media

This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another solo episode. Is that how I always introduce my solos? I feel like I sound a little bit repetitive. It's fine. But I'm loving these solos. I feel like it's a great moment for me to chat with you, do a Q&A, give you an update, whatever it may be. And I feel like an update is very needed right now. I genuinely feel like the most life-changing transitions have happened to me in the past month and I haven't really spoken about any of them in depth because I wasn't ready to and a lot of them are quite like private business related things all of them kind of related to the business thing and I couldn't talk about that and I probably still

won't in detail but I want to fill you guys in on everything that's been going on with me because it's the first time in my life that I feel like I haven't overshared. I mean, I still, I'm still oversharing a little bit. But so much has happened. And I want to fill you in. I did announce that we are moving to Austin, Texas, but there's so much more wrapped into that. I've received so many questions about that move. And yeah, I just want to give you the hoedown, lowdown, throwdown because I hate feeling like I need to catch you guys up in my whole life. So without further ado, let's do an update episode. And I also want to talk about like some of my intentions with all these changes and how I'm dealing with it emotionally and mentally and you know, kind of what I do during a time of big transition and hopefully a bunch of you will relate because I feel like

with the new year it does bring about a lot of change. So Greg and I officially closed on a very big partnership that we've been working on for about a year now. And this is a partnership between our company Bloom Nutrition and Nutribolt. Nutribolt is a portfolio company that owns C4 Energy, which you may have heard of. It's owned by someone named Doss, who is an awesome entrepreneur. And this is the first time we've ever partnered with anyone on Bloom. I think I've mentioned to you guys that we are self-funded from the beginning which is incredibly rare in this industry. Most people take loans or they take investments but we've been 100% self-funded, self-owned so it's the first time that we are partnering and giving some ownership to someone else. Now, Greg and I are still majority owners

of the company, very much so. But we are partnering with someone else in the industry because we are ready to expand Bloom and take it to the next level. And our goal is to create a Bloom drink. And that's why we are partnering with Nutribolt. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say that. So we may or may not need to take that part out. But we are really excited for this partnership. And there's just so much that goes into a partnership. I mean, I didn't know anything about investments, equity, partnerships, any of this stuff before entering this journey. And it has been a year long journey because it was a very big deal. This was something that was a huge step for us, for Nutribolt, for everyone involved. If you want to see more about it,

it's on my LinkedIn. But yeah, that was a life-changing moment for us in our careers and it's a huge reason why we're moving to austin nutribolt is based in austin and we want to work closely with them on the expansion of bloom and the future of bloom and that was why austin even kind of came up in the first place but we obviously have a bunch of personal reasons we want to move there anyway to start a family to settle down a little bit so the deal is something that I've alluded to a few times but it was quite emotionally taxing for the past year and just took a lot of work and I have to applaud Greg and Leo for really taking that on and dedicating themselves to making it happen and I am so happy with the outcome and I just feel like a weight is lifted

off my shoulders and it really feels like the perfect partnership for us and the perfect path for Bloom and I don't know if you guys care about this it's definitely more business related than I usually talk about but it has been consuming my life for the past year and I haven't been able to talk about it and it's finally closed so couldn't be more excited and I'm officially able to move into the house that we thought we were going to move into we were so unsure of everything because we were waiting for this deal to close and now we have our house in Austin I couldn't be more excited my goal with the house and a lot of you were like oh my gosh you just moved into your Venice house what about your Venice house I love our Venice house it's stunning I put a lot of work into it but we're

selling it I will say because I've moved around so much my whole life I don't get particularly like emotionally attached to houses I'm sort of I'm sort of just like onto the next. So we are cleaning up the house right now to be sold, power washing, painting, staining, all the things. And yeah, we will be selling our California house and saying goodbye and moving into our new home in Austin, which I'm obsessed with. We did the final walkthrough last weekend. And my goal was to have a real grass yard. Yards are a big deal for me. I love to have a big space outside. And I feel like we have achieved that. It has a garage that we're going to turn into a gym. It's in a really family friendly neighborhood, a suburb that's very walkable and not too far from downtown. We're really in the mix. I think I'm like 10 minutes from Fi's new apartment, which to me is like 10 minutes too long. Like I wish she

was my neighbor, but it's fine. And then we're also really close to our friends Leo. We are in the perfect space for our industry. I feel like a lot of podcast hosts are out of Austin and also a lot of CPG companies, consumer package good companies. So can't wait to be there. I did move my horse. So that's for some reason like the number one question people ask me. They're like, what about the horse? Bo is obviously coming to Texas. He's going to be a Texas boy. I'm so excited. I toured a ton of different bonds for him and found the perfect one. I couldn't be more excited. I feel like my experience in California with the horse world was interesting. I learned a lot and have learned that I'm definitely a newbie in the horse world

and it can be a little bit insane. So I really wanted to find something like where the people were really, really friendly and I felt really taken care of and that Beau would have the best life ever. So he is on route right now. He's actually in a truck on his way to Austin and they are expecting his arrival at 7pm tonight. So he's in Austin before me, but the barn is ready for him. They're going to take care of him. And by the time I get there, he'll be all settled in. So it's about 20 minutes from my house. Currently I drive an hour to get to my barn. So I feel really good about this choice and I can't wait to see Bo out in the grass. It makes me so happy. So yeah, Bo is obviously coming.

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slash pow to get started with 40% off EarthBreeze eco sheets. Go to earthbreeze.com slash pow, P-O-W, to get started with 40% off EarthBreeze eco sheets. Now, how are Greg and I getting to Austin? I think I maybe mentioned this in a previous episode, but we actually just got ourselves a converted sprinter van this is a sprinter van that has a bed and a kitchen and like storage it's like a proper you could live in this van it's really really cool van speed helped us out with it this isn't sponsored but I thought I'd mention that. And it's always been our dream to go cross country in a van.

And we are doing it. We are driving for three days in the van with the two dogs. We've mapped out our route. We know where we're going to sleep. We're going to stop in some national parks. And that's the plan. We've already done a couple drives with the dogs. Lulu hates travel. Hates cars, doesn't like it.

She's not vibing. Arnold is obsessed with vehicles. Like the second you put him in a vehicle, he's asleep and like vibing. So Arnold's going to love the van. He like falls right asleep. Lulu's going to hate it. So poor girl, but we can't fly with her. So we'll have to figure that out. And I'm excited for this three day van excursion because I really feel like it gives us three days to reflect on what on earth just happened. Because the thing with me and Greg, the thing with me and Greg is that we really don't stop and process anything. In the past, like, five years of Bloom, we've just kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going through every milestone. So like, I lost 90 pounds, we started our business. All these things have happened to us getting into Target, getting into Walmart, Forbes 30 under 30, a team of 100 people, like the office. I even had people in here yesterday. And they were like,

Mari, why don't you like talk about how crazy this is and I was like it just it doesn't hit me until I stop and I never stop and I've kind of had that epiphany and I'm so freaking grateful by the way for all all of this success like would not be possible without this community like I really credit everything we've done to the people who have supported us. And I cannot thank you guys enough for just listening to the show right now. It means the absolute world. And by no means am I saying like, I don't appreciate it. I think it's almost from a fear of losing it or slipping backwards. It's like, okay,

we need to keep going because otherwise we'll lose it it so I think this three-day van excursion really gives us the opportunity to reflect and be like wow what just happened and then also set intentions for Austin because I feel like Austin is a really good opportunity for a blank slate and I was talking with my friend Sammy yesterday and she said, Mari, I think you should be so intentional about that drive and set aside like two hours of the drive to journal or do a visualization practice and just really think about what life you want to live in Austin. And I just had Roxy Nafusi on the show and she's the queen of manifesting and wrote a book all about manifesting and i love her because she's very like real with it it's not woo woo it's like okay manifest but then you have to actually work hard and do it and i love the idea of visualizing

you know i have goals for what i want my life to be like and i wouldn't say they are so in line with how i live right now how i live right now is super like go go go go go high cortisol high energy at all times and I've been feeling some friction with the way I live and being like I still want to work hard and I still have major goals but there's a way I can go about it where I have I'm just more intentional and I'm not saying yes to absolutely everything and I'm spread so thin. So I want to visualize that dream life for myself and think about the things that are important to me and the family I want to build with Greg and the life I want to have and the real like connection. I think connection is a big word for me because I want to have a really strong friend group in Austin, a really strong like home life, like a true home life because Greg and I often allow work in our house. There really is no boundary currently and there kind of needed to be

fluidity between our work and life and I'm ready to kind of have a safe, safe, personal home life that's like there's no screens, there's no, you know, meetings being had at the kitchen table. We obviously will have an office in our house, but to separate that work. But yeah, I really just want to think about how can I make that reality happen in Austin for myself and how can I show up the best way possible and start living the way that I would like my life to look so I can't wait I mean just a little glimpse of that some things I want to have a chicken coop I know that sounds crazy and silly but I've been researching how to take care of chickens and I have a vision for my chicken coop,

where I want to put it. I want to have five hens. I'm going to do different breeds. So I have different types of eggs. I'm going to have it in the corner of my yard. That's one of my visions. And also just my workflow. Fi and I have been discussing, you know, currently I very much treat my job like a nine to five. get to the office at nine I'm here till five or later work consumes my whole life basically until I'm like horseback riding on the weekend or doing something else so I'm like does it have to look like that because I really find that my most creative ideas and thoughts and like thoughts for the podcast guest ideas um you know creative new products or labels I want to do come to me when I'm not at the desk they come to me when I'm on

a walk or you know with a friend and I'm discussing something I feel like there can be more flexibility in my day and I just it's hard for me to know how to go about that because I've lived this way for so long and it gives me a sense of peace to have this structure but I really want to figure out what makes me feel the happiest and most creative and how can I implement that in Austin because I don't want to just keep doing things because it feels like the way I should do it we don't have an office yet I I'm going to have to explore, you know. I will be coming back to LA pretty much every month to record, to meet with the Bloom team, etc. But I do want to have a place to record out of in Austin and also a place, obviously,

to work out of. So it feels like a really new, fresh opportunity to do that and to meet new people and just expand and grow so I couldn't be more excited. Any girl that drinks out of a Stanley knows that sound. Anyway guys by the time you listen to this I probably will already be in my Austin house and I'm trying to decide like how much I want to share of that transition and that move because it does feel quite overwhelming and I feel like I share so much of my life now on here that it feels like weird to share it also on Instagram if that that makes sense. I'm like, well, the girls who know are the girls who want to know and they tune into the pod. But yeah, I'll do my best to share on Instagram as well about the move. And I feel like the thing that's helping me

mentally during this transition is just a little bit of just trust and knowing what's meant to happen will happen. And as I mentioned to you guys, I've been seeing those angel numbers and I'm not a big angel number person. I'm not super woo woo, but I've been seeing 111 this whole year. And for some reason, it's just given me this feeling of like, it will happen, just let it happen. So treating it in that way and then also just viewing it as this really positive blank slate to try and implement all the things I've been wanting for so long and really think of it as this moment for like a fresh start so anyway guys I really hope that summed it up and I didn't forget anything maybe I'll do a Q&A my next

episode so I can answer any questions you guys have I really hope you enjoyed this quick update episode I feel like you guys are up to date with my life now and I can talk more freely I love you so much if you enjoyed please don't forget to subscribe follow leave a review it really really helps me continue to grow the show and know what you guys are looking for and keep doing this thing that I love so I really appreciate you all and I'll see you in the next episode bye thanks for joining us on the pursuit of wellness podcast to support this show please rate and review and share with your loved ones if you want to be reminded of new episodes click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my

favorites at marilowelland.com. It will be linked in the show notes. This is a Wellness Out Loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks, and Kelly Kyle. This show is edited by Mike Fry and our video is recorded by Louise Vargas. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mari Fitness. Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider-patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.