the bossbabe podcast - 96. From My Kitchen to Whole Foods: How I Built a Multi-Million Dollar Feminine Hygiene Company With The Honey Pot Co. Founder, Beatrice Dixon

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

Have you ever had a dream for a business idea or solution to a problem? Today’s special guest is Beatrice Dixon, Founder of The Honey Pot Company, a plant-based feminine care brand. Launched in 2014, Beatrice has built The Honey Pot Co. into a multimillion-dollar business and has won the 2020 ESSENCE Best in Black Beauty Award. Tune in to hear how a life-changing dream inspired both a solution for bacterial vaginosis and multi-million dollar business idea.   Having suffered from bacterial vaginosis for months, Beatrice was visited by an ancestor in a dream where she was given the ingredients to heal herself. From that insightful dream, Beatrice created a formula for an all-natural, clean feminine wash that not only worked for her but also, many other women suffering from the same affliction. Today, The Honey Pot Company empowers women to take control of their feminine hygiene by providing natural feminine care products.  Join us as we discuss Beatrice’s biggest lessons in business - from how she bootstrapped her company, launched her products, and got stocked in retailers nationwide. We’ll also dive deep into how Beatrice cultivated self-love and a positive mindset to create success and wealth even in the face of adversity.  Join Online Launch School, a 12-week program designed to take the guesswork out of sold-out launches, whether you’re looking to start an online business or scale one. https://bossbabe.com/ols Learn more about our partnership with ELLE, iconic lifestyle brand and the world’s largest women’s fashion magazine. https://bossbabe.com/elle

I've never been like, I want to give up right now. That has never, ever, ever, ever crossed my mind, ever. Even in moments where I might have been told to give up, I was still like, nah, I can't give up. But there has been a lot of lessons. Being able to say that you don't know being comfortable with what you don't know. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of burning successful businesses achieving peak

performance and learning how to bounce it all. I'm Danielle Canty president and co-founder of Boss Babe and your host for this week's episode. Now you cannot have missed our special announcement about our partnership with lifestyle and media brand powerhouse Elle. Now Elle means she in French and for its 75th anniversary Elle is partnering with Boss Babe to celebrate everything female entrepreneurship. Now we believe women are the future of entrepreneurship and this year more than ever we want to discover and reveal the faces that are building tomorrow. Now our guest for today is actually one of our role models for the partnership, Beatrice Dixon. Now, Beatrice is the founder of Honey Pot Co., which if you are not familiar with, is a natural feminine hygiene product brand. And Beatrice's story is so, so inspiring because through her motivation to help other women, combined with an unapologetic ambition,

she successfully built a multi-million dollar business which eventually led her to collaborate with target but what i love about this is her story is so so interesting because having suffered from a bacterial infection that she could not get rid of she was visited by and one of her ancestors in a vivid dream one night and it was this dream that led to her to create a cure for herself right from her very own kitchen and it was during this time that bitch just knew she needed to help other women who were dealing with the same issues. So now without revealing too much here, we'll discuss Beatrice's journey on how she successfully built Honeypot from that dream into the multi-million dollar company it is, and the adversity that she had to deal with along the way, but how important a positive mindset above all else is. Now, I know you're going to leave this interview feeling so motivated and inspired because I know I did but I want you

to stay tuned right to the very end of this episode as I am going to be sharing with you more about how our partnership with Alex is going to allow female entrepreneurs to enter a nationwide contest in June to pitch their ideas to a panel of inspiring businesswomen. So without further ado let's dive right into this episode and as, take a screenshot and share your biggest wins on InstaStories, tagging myself at Danielle Canty, tagging at bossfave.inc and tagging at Elle Boutique. A boss fave is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own

vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe Podcast, Beatrice. It is literally such an honor to have you on here. We have been huge, huge fans, Natty and I, and to have you be part of the collaboration that we're doing with Al and be one of our ambassadors is literally amazing. And we are so, so excited to kind of share your wealth of knowledge with our listeners today. Thank you so much for having me here. I feel really honored to be here. Thank you. Bless you. So I know now that you have this huge multimillion dollar company, which so many people have heard of, and you have had several awards, but I also know that wasn't always the case. And so I'd love for us to really start this interview by talking a little bit about your background, like your

family, where you're from, just so our listeners can kind of understand a little bit more of your journey. Oh, I love it. That sounds good. So where were you from initially? So I was born in Virginia, in Arlington, Virginia in 1982. And I grew up in the DMV area all the way up until I was like 10, I think going on 11. After that, we moved to Arizona because my mother had a really bad accident in her back. She went through a lot with her back. And so her doctor told her to move to Phoenix because the seasonality in Phoenix just wasn't like on the East Coast. You know, on the East Coast, you get all the seasons. Yeah. Yeah. And so I grew up in Phoenix. And then when I became an adult and was able to like look after myself, I moved back to

DC, but then I hated it. And then I moved back to Arizona and then I moved to Atlanta. Wow. Atlanta kind of made me into an adult. So I love that. So you kind of moved around a little bit, exploring what you liked and really kind of found that point where you're like, yeah, this is home. I love that.

I'm similar. I've literally moved from the UK to the US recently. So I'm like, oh, actually, I like this here. I'm in Los Angeles. So I'm like, oh, I'm done with the seasons. I'm liking this. So I really want to hear more about how you came up with the idea of Honeypot, because I know that you talk about this coming to you in a dream. So share us that journey with us. Yeah, I mean, between 2011, 2012, I had an almost year long bacterial vaginosis infection, literally nothing worked that I tried. I would go to the doctor, I would take the medicine. I would try like every natural remedy that you can Google

that had a form to it. And, you know, I was just getting no relief. And one night I went to sleep. In the morning, kind of right before I woke up is when I had the dream. But I was just sitting at a round table with my grandmother and she had handed me a piece of paper and it had a list of ingredients on it. And she told me that she had been watching me kind of going through the struggles of trying to figure out how to heal myself. And that this formula that she was giving me basically that I needed to pay attention and memorize it because when I woke up because basically she was telling me like you're in a dream right now so when you wake up whoa you know you need to write this down she told me to wake up and I woke up and I wrote it down oh Oh my goodness. Had you experienced things like that before with your dreams?

Not that vivid, not that clear and that vivid and that accurate. That was a first. And so you woke up, you're like scribbling it down frantically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was trying to remember it as it came. I was just trying to get it out of my brain quickly. And the cool thing is that I, at that time I used to keep a, like a book by my bed so I could record my dreams. Cause I am a dreamer, you know? But yeah, it was crazy. It was a beautiful

experience, but you know, I can't remember it like it was yesterday. And so I feel like you utilize like this one thing like hearing how to like heal yourself and having that recipe and going right you wrote that down and you tried it and it worked right this wasn't something that you know didn't work it was like okay this really really helped and this cured you but that is a big transition from going okay now like I've healed myself now I'm going to turn this into a business called Honeypot. So what did that transition look like? Had you been an entrepreneur before? Like what were you doing work-wise at the time? I had been an entrepreneur before, but not like this. No, like I had a cleaning business. I had an organizing business. I worked for Whole Foods.

So that was my full-time job. And then I would supplement my income with cleaning and organizing. And I was an artist model too, you know, where I would just like go to art classes and be a stand-in for like people making sculptures or painting pictures. So I was just like an overall hustler just doing what I had to do because I had to live. I had to meet my basic needs. So yeah, but it was immediate. I tried it, it worked. And I was like, oh shit, I should probably make this into a business because there's so many people that could benefit from this. Because I knew so many women that were going through the same thing that I was going through. And when you went on Google and you looked at all these forums and when you search reoccurring yeast infection

or reoccurring bacterial vaginosis or reoccurring UTIs, you know, the search, what you're going to get from that search is astronomical. Right. And so, you know, I knew that there was a huge need and I right away, literally like the moment that it worked I was like oh yeah I gotta this is what I have to do next I gotta do this I love this but what were your next steps because I know that some of our listeners are kind of going okay well maybe I had this idea but you know the fact that you've never had a product-based business before like how did you like decide okay these are the next steps that I need to do first I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just working for me right so first for almost a year and a half to two years I basically tested it

but not like with a proper clinical trial I kind of created my own clinical trial because I knew that I had to perfect the recipe because obviously when you're trying to make a formula you have to get your measurements right it's like if you're cooking, it's very similar to that. Yeah, get the recipe. You have to really meet a general market consumer somewhere. And so I was just perfecting it. And I wanted to make sure because I also the nature of where it's going, right, is going on somebody's vulva and anything that you put on your skin is going inside your body. So I knew that I had that responsibility hanging over my head. And so we tested it for a couple of years,

basically any woman that I could give it to. So I didn't charge anybody for it until maybe like 2013 is when people, I think maybe even in 2012, actually, some people started to buy, but it was just like through an email. And I didn't even know at the time to like go to the post office. So I would be like, come to my house and pick it up or I'll come drop it off to you or, you know what I mean? So I mean, we were just figuring it out as it came. But then once I realized that most of those women were seeing similar results to what I was seeing, because at the time that was the focus, right? I mean, it morphed into this isn't a product specifically for women who have reoccurring anything, right? This is a product that is just as synonymous as clean skincare that you use on your face

or whatever you use on your body or how, you know what I mean? Yeah. It became more of a proactive thing than a reactive thing in the beginning it felt like we were being reactive to women that had bv not that we could cure diagnose or treat it per se right because of the fda and it's a natural product but in the beginning that's what it felt geared to because that's all that I knew yeah and you were really listening to the consumer as well right which is what a lot of these big companies weren't doing or still aren't doing. And that's how you've been able to kind of like really fill that niche. And I think that's what's

really important, like to point out that you're like listening, like you were that woman, you were your ideal client, you were your avatar. You're like, Hey, I know what I need. And actually so many women out there needed exactly the same thing. And really that's how we built our whole entire line. Like we just pay attention. Yeah, exactly. And you launched in 2014, right? So you've done like maybe like what, two years of like playing with the formula, getting

feedback from friends and family, maybe selling a little bit on the side, but you officially launched in 2014. And what was that like? How did that go? Were you like, oh my goodness, there's a complete hit straight away? Or was it a little bit more wet than that? No, no. I mean, it was a hit straight away, but a hit didn't mean that we were just making a lot of money. Because technically we had already started moving the company along, right? And then I had people that were consistently ordering through email. And then an opportunity

came for us to go to the Bronner Brother Hair Show, which is a hair show that's in Atlanta like twice a year. It's one of the largest black hair shows out there. So that opportunity came. My brother, who's my co-founder, helped us source the money to figure out how we were going to pay. Because there's like 50,000 women and just humans walking around. And it might be more than that at that convention for three days. So I felt like that was the best place to launch it because there was mostly women there. We put together the money. We bought all the bottles and caps and labels and everything. And we sold 600 bottles in a weekend. So that's why it was such a hit because that was going to tell us if you're not able to sell

through all of your inventory, when there's tens of thousands of people walking around, that would have been an indicator for me. Right. So I said, if this doesn't work, then, you know, obviously we need to figure something else out or maybe we should forego it. But it ended up working and we sold 600 bottles in a weekend. And then from there, we launched online and then we got into Whole Foods. It was only in a couple stores, but still it didn't matter. We could say we were in Whole Foods. I think this is really just amazing to kind of point out because I think a lot of people see, oh, overnight success, etc.

But when you really break down of testing the formula, taking it first to market, like you say, going to this event and going, hey, does this really sell? And then it kind of, it grows, but it also with it, your confidence grows as well, right? You're like, oh, actually, really, this product is really needed. And I know you know it, but sometimes it's like that whole piece around like you kind of start gaining that momentum and you're able to kind of go with more confidence. Like you say, just got into a few whole food stores, but then that led to you getting into other stores, right? Right. Yes, that did. That did. And us launching online and being able to grow online business pretty well. I mean, we weren't making millions of dollars, but the fact that we were able to get it into six figures like two years in was powerful because we were just doing that on our own.

Everything we made, we put back in. You know, but it's important to understand what success means in business. Right. And overnight success in business is like a 10 year business. That's how long it could take. Yeah. because most businesses die within 24 months right they do it's something like 90 or 70 90 as varying statistics but it's a huge amount and I think like you do need that tenacity to keep on going absolutely absolutely you do so let's talk about that what have been some of the biggest lessons that you've learned from starting your own business some of the things that you've been like oh my goodness I am so close to giving up right now

but I powered through and I learned this from it like just share some of those experiences with us I've never been like I want to give up right now that has never ever ever ever crossed my mind ever even in moments where I might have been told to give up, I was still like, nah, I can't give up. I got to keep pushing. So that's just not who I am. But there has been a lot of lessons. Being able to say that you don't know, being comfortable with what you don't know. Raising money has been challenging.

Yeah, let's talk about that. Because you raised over a million, right? We've raised more than that now. But when you look at what we've raised and compare it to what our competitors raise we've definitely ran a lean organization we run our business we really bootstrap our business even after funding because the amount of funding that we've gotten hasn't been outrageous and we've really had to be lean to make sure that we can stretch that as far as it can go.

Yeah. Was that a conscious decision? Because I feel like, you know, particularly coming from like the UK to California, I've been in California, there's definitely a lot of people who raise a hell of a lot of money and it's always like this kind of like badge of honor, like, oh yeah, I raised this much money. It's like, what was your kind of thought process around like choosing how much to raise and not kind of going like saying, okay, we want to run lean versus actually we just want to raise as much as we can and see where it gets us. Because I think this is a conversation that's not really had that much. unless you're like Airbnb, right? You know, those days of getting those tech multiples, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that those days are gone at least for a little while. In the moment, it wasn't conscious. In the moment, in those moments, I wanted to raise more money, right? But in this moment, I am grateful that we've only raised what we've raised. Like I'm grateful that we were lean. I'm grateful that we were efficient. I'm grateful that we only raised kind of for what we needed.

Because you have a successful business model then too, right? I think like when sometimes you raise so much, you're just not really worried where you're spending it versus when you're forced to be made to look at the decisions on where you spend it you have to build a real business right yeah you have to build a real business that doesn't mean that things are profitable that doesn't necessarily mean that but what it does mean is that we have to build our business on being a real business and being lean and being efficient and spending where we know it works and having to work with our vendors, you know, like our consultants or firms that we've used, whether it's design agencies or marketing agencies, working with those agencies efficiently, because in this world, it's ridiculous

how much these creative agencies cost. Oh yeah. It's ridiculous how much it costs to make a really great website. So having to like, I don't want to say rob Peter to pay Paul. But you know, but there's definitely vibes of that shit. Yeah. Having to make sure that and it's not easy to do. No, it's not easy to do because you want to have the best creative possible. You want to have a robust marketing strategy. But when you're bootstrapping and when you haven't raised, you know, tens of millions of dollars, right, it can be very hard. But we've managed. Yeah. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all in one platform, Kajabi. You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have

helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know? Get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized

and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe i really hear you on that because i say it's kind of like you have to if you're going to say yes to something else you're kind of saying

no to something and then it's always that conversation okay what's going to help move us forward the most what's going to help us take three steps forward or five steps forward all day if we're able but I also think having to have those conversations also means your learning curve this is what I found personally your learning curve is like increased and accelerated because you're like okay I have to learn about this or I'm gonna have to you know have these conversations that are difficult or I'm going to have to make these choices but ultimately I think it allows you to know more about your business and more about your client or your customers which ultimately leads to more of your success so speaking of customers you mentioned earlier that you initially managed to get into

Whole Foods and I know that kind of scaled and then you also have you're in Target as well and you did the most amazing campaign recently. So let's talk a little bit about that. How did that come about? The Target campaign came about, Target wanted to produce some content. At the time, I didn't even realize it was going to be what it was, but they had told us about it because we were interviewing with several other brands where they wanted to put one of the brands that was sold in their store that was Black-owned and women-owned because they wanted to make this feature around Black History Month and Women's History Month since they go right after each other. So literally, they called us in and said that they wanted to interview us. They were interviewing multiple

companies. And a few weeks later, they told us that we were chosen. And we went to Minnesota. We taped it over like three or four days. You know, it was a really remarkable experience. I had never experienced that before. And a lot of times with me, I'm normally, I take every interview, right? It doesn't matter where they're from, how many followers they have. You know, I don't give a shit about any of that because I feel like that's an opportunity for me to potentially get in front of one person or millions of people that may not have known about our brand. So that's always my state of mind. So I had no idea that this was going to be a commercial. I was just like, oh,

maybe it'll be on social media. This will be cute. And then I get there. And no, the day before I leave, they're asking all these questions. Can you bring your mom? Can you bring your brother? And I'm like, what? This seems like more than just like some IG content. I'm like, what exactly are you going to do with this? And they were basically like, no, this is like a major thing.

This is really serious. This is going to be on TV and all this other stuff. So it was really beautiful. It was really beautiful what Target showed as the content. As you can imagine, we recorded a lot of content and they have to edit all that stuff out and fit it into a 30 second spot. It was fantastic. I've never experienced anything like that in my life I love that and I also love how you're just like oh yeah I'm gonna do this target thing and then it just blew up I also love though about that mantra as well because sharing your story and sharing the power and of honeypot because I think like you said yes those people will hear about you but also you actually have such a positive impact on women's lives that you're

kind of like we have this kind of discussion where actually if we don't share it like we're actually doing the women a disservice of followers or supporters because we want to help get that message out and allow them to know like what's possible and I really see that with your company and how you show up and you're I feel like you share so much of your story that it's so empowering and it's also really nice to hear and it's obviously a lot of people don't necessarily talk openly about female hygiene but it affects so many women like negatively so to be able to like show up in the way that you do and willing to come and talk very openly about how you discovered your business how you started and like the impact that you have I think it's just so so amazing

and I know that loads of women here if they've not already heard of you they're gonna be like okay I need to definitely look into this yeah because again it's just not it's just not something that people are talking about it's kind of like oh in the bottom aisle or like you know it's just their bathroom cupboards and no one's really talking about it whereas actually it really does affect so many and so this obviously like the target campaign was like such a huge high or really really amazing but we also have to acknowledge that we do have like our low times and I know that we spoke about earlier and like we've never felt like really giving up or anything like that I completely relate to that I'm exactly the same but I'm really curious like how do you handle adversity and what do you do to keep motivation like you know you work with like family members

like how do you have any like mantras that help you get through what does that look like when you're like okay this is a challenging time but I'm gonna push through it being in business is hard right it's remarkably hard in fact in this type of business, it's really, really, really, really, really hard. I learned that early on. And so because I already know that, that really helps me to keep pushing. But the other thing that I had to do to take care of myself is I really had to get happy. And I really had to get to a place where I actually really liked myself and I where I was in a very healthy state of mind that doesn't mean like today the day didn't necessarily go in the direction that I necessarily wanted it to go but I'm very

aware of the fact that I don't really control shit, right? There's very little thing that most humans control, right? So I just try to remember that it doesn't always work. You know, my remembering that is not always effective, but I try to get back to there even when I'm in a moment and I'm just allowing myself to feel it but if and then too it depends on what it is like right now we're stressed out because COVID is a thing and it has really really with our supply chain you know what I'm saying like on level and that's not just us that's everybody everybody's supply chain is affected by this right yeah and at the same time like you still have retailers to serve you still have online customers to serve and like sure COVID is still

heavily affecting us but our customers and our retailers that's not their problem it's ours right yeah and so those types of things affect me. When my freedom is challenged, that affects me. Right. Because I grasp onto any of those moments that I can, right? Because I am free as a bird. Yeah. But like when the thing that happened with Target and all the negative comments and all that kind of stuff, that shit didn't even affect me. The only reason why it affected me

is because it really affected me weeks later when our inventory became a thing. But dealing with the adversity that came back, I didn't really care about that because I still have customers to serve, right? And at the same time, I really had to show up to that situation with a lot of responsibility and there was no way that I could take any of that shit personal mostly it was responsibility for myself but then responsibility because I feel like when

you're a person who's in the public eye you have to be really responsible with that light yeah 100 i didn't want to say to other humans if something like this happens to you fight back you know what i mean like yeah there is no fight back for people who are on the same frequency as you so yeah i guess to answer it's a long answer, but to answer your question, I try to be responsible when I'm faced with adversity. I love that you're sharing so much about that because I do think it's, we on the Boss Babe podcast, we love having the conversations that people don't always have. And I think this is really one of them.

And we need to acknowledge that, yes, entrepreneurship is hard. And I would say to fill the highs, you've got to go through the lows, but how you show up for the lows is how you show up for the lows is what's really important and I just like use that word like I'm taking that responsibility and kind of managing your emotions or whatever comes with that one thing I want to just pull back on because you said this and it really like struck home with me you're like you had to get comfortable like being yourself and like self-love and I know that so many women listening to this will be like oh my goodness like I'm just they're so hard on themselves and how did you do that?

I wanted to first of all. Yes do you know what that's part of it right you've got to want it. Real shit I wanted to and my mom I was in an unhappy time in my life and my mom had been with me and watching me. She was just like, you know, you're going to die one day. You know what I mean? Like you could die tomorrow and you have a great business. You have great friends. You have your mom. You know, you have all these things that make your life so beautiful.

Right. And she's like, you're hustling backwards in a way like you're using your time to focus on all the shit that doesn't matter when you gotta be focusing on all the shit that does matter and the things do that do matter are all the things that make my life beautiful and I heard her and I constantly hear her. Like I got learned how to dye tattooed on my fingers, just the letters LHTB. I want to, I leaned into myself and I started to learn about different gurus. Saad Guru was one of the first ones. And then I learned about Pema Chodron. And then I learned about Muzhi.

And then I learned about Osho. And then I started to listen to them. And a lot of what they said, it just made complete sense for me because I was there. I had shaved myself and guilted myself enough to the point to where I was just like, all of these things are just in my head. That doesn't necessarily mean they're real. And so I just, I work at it and I work at it every day. You know what I mean? Like I get sad, I get angry, my ego, I try to die to my ego, but sometimes that shit just comes back. Right. And then I just have to get to the next moment where I can be like, okay, calm down, breathe, look at this. Is this really what you should be spending your time on? Sometimes you have to mull over something to get somewhere. And so many people want to start businesses,

right? It's really important that you make that your business. Like if you want to start a business, it's beautiful. But it's so important to make it your business to get happy and to get calm and to get quiet and to get present. Right. And to like eat well and to drink water and to sit down and have some sort of meditation, even if it's not you sitting down in a quiet place but just being okay with your present moment that's a form of meditation right where you when you can get to a place where you're not judging yourself i love that it's so true and it's so important and just you calling out and you have to make a choice like if you if you want to self-love and you want to build your confidence you have to make that choice and

you have to invest time in doing that. It's not something that comes naturally for most people. And those people who want to embody that, they work at it. And definitely myself and Natalie, we both always kind of thinking, I actually also discuss this. Have you ever done the wheel of life where there's eight or nine prongs and it's like you choose a term naught to ten on like which area of your life you're in like so friends family um career personal development hobbies and

you mark them out of ten and my theory is that you can never really reach a ten in any of them unless you first reach a ten in personal development because unless you're investing in yourself your relationships are not going to be where they want to be you're not going to be where you want to be in work like and I think it's a knock-on effect and those changes start with us and I think when we realize and we take responsibility of that that's when the other things start falling in place like you say even going back to like just owning like okay well I'm not a whatever happens I'm never a victim it's always happening for me and not to me so how can I show up for this exactly and how do I have the most abundant experience in all of

my experiences even if it's full of laughs you know what I'm saying yes it's important to pay attention to that and it's so important to understand that you're never going to get to the place of truest purest love I did a podcast and there was a woman on there and she was saying how she was like a black sheep of her family and she was just unhappy and nobody was ever there for her and everything that she had to do she did for herself and she was asking the panelists to recommend something to help her to get to where she needs to get, right? And I'm not saying this in a comparison. I don't think that there's a right or wrong answer.

But it really f***ed me because everybody on the call told her about their accomplishments, right? Yeah. And this is just my opinion. And my opinion doesn't mean shit. Accomplishments don't mean a thing if you're not happy inside. Right. Oh, 100%. You have to get to a place where you don't.

You are so fulfilled in yourself. Right. You are so fulfilled within your energy that it wouldn't matter if the world was against you. Right. Because you're for me. And it's so important for humans to understand that shit right and also I think it's really important for you to get small to have very a very simple life yeah I always say as well that like success is an objective so it's not like something like

a number's not going to make you feel successful. Like it's not tangible. It's really subjective. It's like how you feel about what you've achieved, that you can be successful and have nothing and you can have everything in the world and feel like you're still not successful. So it really is like kind of making peace with that. And that's definitely something I've learned on my journey. And you know that it's not, you can't just keep going after things like that's never going to make you feel

happy nor successful. So you have to let yourself find that inner peace and go okay i'm happy with this and without it and that's what really matters exactly because if you are able to meet a person who has all the money in the world who has zero happiness and lives on antidepressants and yeah and look and sometimes those things are necessary you understand what i'm saying i'm not gonna downplay that shit like it's not a thing because it is a thing yeah but i also think that it's a thing to really i don't want to sound insensitive it's also a thing to just be really responsible for your mental health as much as you can control and if you can't control it then you

should be responsible and go to the doctor and figure out what medication works and what doesn't work. But also making sure that while you're doing that, you're like paying attention to what you're eating.

You're paying attention to what your supplements are. You're paying attention to who you hang around with, to how often you're in social media. Are you doing things that you really don't want to do? Are you repressing yourself?. Are you doing things that you really don't want to do? Are you repressing yourself?

Right? Is there shit that you really want to do, but you feel guilt and shame for doing it? F*** that. Do what you want to do. You understand what I'm saying? Don't repress. It's that responsibility.

Yes. There's nothing wrong with anything because there's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing wrong if you've got a disease that was sexually transmitted. There's nothing wrong if you're bipolar. There's nothing wrong if you're anxious. There's nothing wrong with any of those things, right? There's nothing wrong if you choose to be reckless with your life, if that's what you choose, right? But if you really want a fulfilling life, if you really want to be happy, if you really want to love yourself, even in the midst of having whatever you have going on in your life, right?

It's just important for you to own up to that and really make a conscious decision and do whatever it's going to take to get there. And that is the hard part. You know, that's the shit that can be lost on people. It's hard to do. Yeah, no, it is. But I think it's just really important to have these open, truthful conversations because this is a lot of the piece

that our mindset around growing a business gets really underestimated. And so I think it's really important to be very, like we've been very open around what that looks like and the responsibility that it takes and so speaking about businesses and speaking about like you know looking after yourself looking after your mindset and growing that and leading that on to other amazing things like what's next for honeypot where do you see that going right now we're so focused on our business development and our foundation and how we're looking at our growth

and how we're managing our business right now i'm so focused on building a business that can contain itself and sustain itself you know for me that is what is most important right sure everybody wants to have profitability everybody wants positive evas and every you know everybody wants to be able to have the opportunity to raise billions of dollars and do all those things but I really like to get back to basics I like to make sure that my basic needs are met whether that's professionally personally and so right now that's that's what we're focused on i love that that's so important yeah we want to be one of the industry leaders in the feminine hygiene and care space well you're

certainly going that way and i just i love supporting brands where like the founders so invested in the product and that's like what really really stands out for me interviewing you today beatrice like you really really care about your customers and you really care the results and I think it's just so so refreshing to have that conversation in the female hygiene department because it isn't something that kind of goes on that much not you know a lot of these companies are owned by huge conglomerates who are like yeah yeah like that brand's been going a long time and it's just there and it does its thing versus like having like this conversation where i go hang on we need to reinvent the wheel because it isn't working for women right so thank you thank you for doing that service for all of us

women out there and i absolutely love this interview and i just want to kind of round things up by you know right at the very beginning i introduced you and said that you are being one of our l ambassadors on the collaboration that we're doing with them, which is so, so exciting. And so I want to ask you a final question. What does Elle mean to you? Oh, man. I remember when I was younger, my Aunt Bebe was fantastic and beautiful. Her favorite word was darling. She would make me walk with books on my head.

I took etiquette classes. Aunt Bebe is gone now she left a few years ago but but she was really kind and sweet to me and she was very fashionable and we would collect magazines together so we would collect Elle and Vogue and you know those were like the synonymous ones you know because I used to I love fashion. At one time, I wanted to go to school for fashion. And I also modeled when I was younger. So it means beauty.

It means fashion that's timeless. It represents all that's beautiful about women and body care and skin care and health and fitness and wellness and sex. It's a staple. And they've been around for so long. I mean, I remember that. I'm 10 years old or nine years old even walking with books on my head. And some of those books were magazines. And I'm positive that Elle magazine was one of them at the time. You know what I mean like it's really an honor to be able to align with a movement that's aligned with Elle because it's everything that's beautiful

I love that that's so nice and so beautiful to hear as well and listen thank you so much but just this interview it's been absolutely amazing like I felt there's been so many takeaways not just on the business front but on that personal development piece as well. And just honestly, thank you so much. So please tell us where our listeners can find out more about you. Like share your IG handles. You know, we love an Instagram post. So share with us where they can find out more. You can find us on IG at thehoneypot.co.

And if you want to find what stores we're in, you can go to our store locator and put in your zip code and it'll tell you where we are nearby. I love that. Thank you so much. And as always, if you have enjoyed this interview, please share your favorite takeaways with myself and Bea. You can also find my handles at daniellecanti and tag at bossbabe.inc. Thank you so much, Beatrice. It's been amazing. Thank you.

Thank you. Take care. Now, I really hope you enjoyed this episode with Beatrice because I know I certainly did. And as I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, Boss Babe is combined force with the lifestyle brand Elle to kick off a high impact partnership with a meaning. And together, we want to continue to pave the way for women to achieve their own versions of success. And as an entrepreneur myself, I know how hard it was to have the resources and the guidance to start my first business. And our goal with this partnership is to leverage our resources to help inspire women all over the world to follow their dreams.

So this nationwide contest, Pitch Your Biz, runs from June 1st to June 30th. And contestants will be able to pitch their ideas during this time. From there, contestants selected to move forwards will then take part in a virtual event on October the 23rd where they will be able to present their ideas again directly to the role models who will serve as the judges. So stay tuned for the latest updates on this partnership and make sure you check out bossfood.com forward slash al as we announce updates on this partnership and make sure you check out bossvote.com forward slash Al as we announce updates, giveaways and an opportunity to work with us. So stay tuned for the rest of the series

to hear from this distinguished panel of ambassadors, including Janice Byron-Horroyd, Rebecca Minkoff, Baba Kanalis, Beatrice Dixon and our CEO and co-founder, Natalie Ellis.