The Bossticks - Amanda Goetz CEO of House Of Wise On How To Start Your Own Business, Raise Money, & Build A Lasting Brand While Staying True To Yourself

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

#410: On today's episode we are joined by Amanda Goetz. Amanda is the founder and CEO of House Of Wise and a single mother of 3. Amanda joins the show today to discuss how you can start your own business, raise capital, and build a lasting brand all while staying true to yourself and your family.  To check out House Of Wise visit www.houseofwise.co and use promo code SKINNY to get 20% off your first SLEEP, SEX, or STRENGTH product.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential  The Hot Mess Ice Roller is here to help you contour, tighten, and de-puff your facial skin and It's paired alongside the Ice Queen Facial Oil which is packed with anti-oxidants that penetrates quickly to help hydrate, firm, and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving skin soft and supple. To check them out visit www.shopskinnyconfidential.com now.  This episode is brought to you by Birch Living Birch makes organic, non-toxic mattresses made right here in America and shipped straight to your door with no-contact delivery, free shipping, free returns, and a 100-night sleep trial. Birch mattresses are made here in America with just four materials sourced straight from nature: organic latex, organic cotton, New Zealand wool, and American steel springs. Birch is giving $400 off ALL mattresses and 2 free eco-rest pillows at www.birchliving.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by Bite Toothpaste Bite is reinventing personal care by making products that are good for you and the planet. Bite's hero product is their dry tooth paste tablets that come in a reusable glass jar and the refills come in home compostable pouches. You just pop one in your mouth, bite down and brush, it will foam up just like regular toothpaste but with no plastic tube or messy paste. Bite is offering 20% off your first subscription order. Go to www.trybite.com/skinny or use code SKINNY at checkout to claim this deal.  This episode is brought to you by Coinbase Crypto currency might feel like a secret or exclusive club, but Coinbase believes that everyone, everywhere should be able to get in the door. Whether you've been trading for years or just getting started, Coinbase can help. For a limited time new users can get $10 in free Bitcoin when you sign up today at www.coinbase.com/skinny  Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Aha. What I mean by that is when you pair it with an active ingredient, whether it's like melatonin for sleep or, you know, we have active ingredients. or sex gummy, it heightens the effects of them. And so when I started to work with chemists and play with different formulas, I saw that you could actually have less of an active ingredient, but a more powerful effect. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. That clip was from our guests of the show today. Amanda Gets, we have a powerful one for you guys today. What do you know about sex gummies? I'm learning a lot about sex gummies. I've been testing in the bedroom, sometimes by myself, sometimes with you, but I'm learning a lot.

By yourself. Yeah, Lern. I do a little trial and error. She has horny goat weed in her gummies. Yes, and you're jumping ahead, Lerne. So we have Amanda on the show today. She is the founder and CEO of House of Wise. You guys have heard us talking about it on this show. We actually invested in the business and just fell in love with the products, fell in love

with the founder of the story. She's also a single mom of three, very inspiring woman who is, heading up an incredible brand that we can not be more excited about. She also has a really interesting story and she goes into that story. We talk about divorce, which I don't think we've discussed enough on this podcast. And she's so open about it. She talks about being a mother, but also wanting to be this badass entrepreneur and the struggle between that.

And she goes into some really intimate moments in her life and is really open and honest. I think you guys are going to be obsessed with this episode. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, we've done so many of these shows now. And sometimes you get a guest and you get someone on the show that you just click with and you feel like you just keep talking and talking. He can go on for hours and hours. And Amanda was definitely one of those guests. You know, sometimes it just clicks. So I think you guys are going to like this episode. We had fun doing it. She came out to Texas. And we covered a lot of ground. On that note, let's talk about sex gummies, sex, divorce, intimacy, all the things with the creator of House of Wise, Amanda. Skinny Confidential, him and her. Amanda, thank you for making the trip out here. I love it here. We're getting more and more people sucked into the Texas, Austin world.

Did you just move to Miami? I moved to Miami. I was in New York for the last 11 years, but I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois, like 800 people. So when I come to Texas, it's kind of Midwest feeling. So it feels like home. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, there's a mass exodus. It's like Miami or Austin, right? Miami's really fun. It feels like New York went on vacation because everybody there is from New York right now. That's amazing New York on vacation. I feel like we need to get over there immediately. Come on vibe. Yeah.

That's a vibe. We'll take a sleep or a sex gummy and go to Miami and party. Drop off your daughter because I have three kids. We'll just, I'll watch. We were talking off air how you have three kids, which is so wild. But I would like to go back before you had three kids and maybe talk a little bit more. You said that you grew up in the Midwest. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I have a very untraditional background. I grew up on a farm and I actually got engaged at the age of 19, got married at 21 because really growing up, I'm a first generation college grad. Neither are my parents went to college. My dad is the town plumber. My mom is a stay-at-home wife and mom. And I didn't realize like really what your upbringing, like what that does to your subconscious and how. you make decisions based on that. And so I idolized, I identified with each of my parents very differently. It's like I idolized being a mom and I really wanted that. But then I also wanted to be an entrepreneur and have this career and have a life outside of the home because I saw my mom always being home all the time and I didn't love that. So fast forward in college. I get engaged at 19. I'm in college. I get married in college. I graduate early to be with my husband in Chicago, and you make choices at 19 that, and if you haven't done kind of that shadow work, like the work that is like really in your subconscious, then you make these decisions.

And so fast forward, I treated my 20s literally like a check the box. I was just like, okay, corporate job, check, husband, check. And then I was like, great. Our marriage wasn't super. super great. So then I was like, what can I distract myself with? Great. We'll move to New York City. Did that. Then again, like we started having the same promise, Buzz. Like, maybe it's time for kids. What do you mean? Your marriage wasn't great. What does that mean? I just want to know what that looks like to you because that could look like something different to everybody. It does look like something different to everyone. And I remember when I got divorced, everybody wanted a reason. Like, like, did he cheat? did, you know, was there any, like, abuse? And it's hard because there's a book that's like

not good enough to stay, not bad enough to leave. And that's really how I felt. Like there was nothing, there's nothing I could point a finger to. It just was like death by a thousand paper cuts, you know? And what really, like, if I had to explain it for me, it was that I was growing into a person that I wasn't when I was 19 and hadn't experienced. Like my first flight was when I was 18. My parents have never been on an airplane. To this day. To this day.

Wow. Literally. Like they will never come to Miami. Like I have to go back to Illinois. But so the person I wanted, I started becoming and especially when I went to New York, started being exposed to different things, started like seeing how different relationships work, how people explore their sexuality differently. And then all of a sudden,

I found myself, had three kids, and when you start to like, when you try to have kids and I had to go through fertility treatments and had miscarriages, so all of a sudden I fixated on that. And then my goal at that time was like, okay, now I have to have kids. Like, this is now consuming. So I kind of like put all that other stuff. I'm like, all right, the marriage stuff is not that bad. I want to have kids. Then I had three kids. And I remember just like waking up and I had postpartum depression. I had postpartum anxiety. And so I first was like, I need to go to therapy. Like, I need to start working on myself.

And I remember, like I said I wanted to go to therapy. He didn't really want to go to therapy. And so he was like, well, you're going through postpartum depression. Why don't you go work on yourself? And were you guys similar ages or? He's a couple years older. Okay. Yeah.

But what happens is if one person starts going to therapy and the other person doesn't and there's already like a rocky foundation, one person starts growing. and then all of a sudden they're like over here and having these conversations with their therapist and it's almost like you look behind the Wizard of Oz like you pulled the curtain back because now you see things that you didn't see before and you can't unsee them.

So what's an example of that and what's I would like to know what an example of a paper cut is? Like is a paper cut you left the fucking toilet seat up and there's piss everywhere like you did the last night? Like what's a paper cut so I can start? filing mine away. Well, just kidding.

Uh-oh. Is this turning into a therapy session for us? Are you growing without me? You never know. No, it's little things that add up. Like, for me, it was, I was doing a lot of the motherhood stuff by myself.

That's hard. People don't talk about that enough. And I started to view him, and I, this is not, I'm not speaking poorly about him. it would like the dynamics of our relationship changed when we had kids, the things that I was okay doing, whether it was like doing the laundry or taking care of him or whatever. When I had kids, I wanted a partner, not someone else to take care of.

And that was the hardest thing for me. I cannot imagine. I think I would get a divorce if I had what you're saying. No one's ever articulated it to me like that. that's, Michael is such a partner in having, having a child. Like, I've never, I've, you really are really good at that. That's one thing you're good at. No, I'm just kidding. I was listening to you talk and I, like, there's a few things in there. I think in like, probably a lot of this conversation, a lot of what you've done is kind of like breaking out of the status quo of what's expected, right? But like, you know, as you've gone along, you've, you've kind of like grown outside the box. But I think so many people, they get in trouble, especially in relationships, because you go through this, you know, box and you're like, okay, we're going to get married. married, we're going to get, we're going to have kids at this time. We're going to, you know, stay together, even if things are a little bit rocky, we're going to raise it. Like, people just kind of like do things because it's what it's expected. And then they, they don't take the time to

stop and question like, hey, do I actually like these things? And speaking to this dynamic is a lot of guys go through life and they think, okay, I'm going to marry this woman and then she's going to take care of the kids and I'm going to go off and do this other thing. But that's, that's not necessarily always how it works. But if that's what you expect and you can't get out of that box, it can create this dynamic right i fully get what you're saying like you don't you're taking care of the kids you don't need to take care of another child right and i had career ambitions like i'm in my 30s got through kids and i'm like great i'm at the height of my career i was leading marketing at the knot the wedding company we just got acquired and i have my kids at home career's going great

and doing the work going to therapy and even though i felt immense guilt that i had to work through that like this societal shame of what a divorce is. I'm like, I finally woke up one day and had this realization. The way my therapist told me was like, if you're still crying saying you want a divorce or if you're still Googling, should I get a divorce, you're not ready. It's the day you wake up and you can say so calmly, I'm ready. Like I am ready to get a divorce and I know I'm going to be okay. And the other lens shift for me, was rather than being angry about having to do everything by myself, I started to be proud. Like I was like, oh, I'm going to have to do all this shit by myself if we get divorced.

So I started to just be like, okay, I'm going to take the trash out. I'm going to take the kids to school. I'm going to do it myself. And then it turned into pride. But the dynamics and what people don't realize when a woman makes that decision, she starts to be happy again. because she's proud of herself. She's like, I'm fucking kicking ass.

I'm doing this. And then their partner thinks that everything is okay. And then they get blindsided when they file for divorce because I think it's 80% of divorces are initiated by a woman. So, yeah. So I did the work filed and then COVID hits. And we worked through it. Like we still have to co-parent for three kids.

Sure. We do 50-50. COVID hits. And we live together. for six weeks to try to like figure out what the fuck we're doing with three kids and homeschool and all this stuff. And honestly, I have to say that we're better friends now. He's a much better, like, present dad. And it's like so much better for the kids because they don't have a stressed out angry mom all the time. We all move to Miami together. Like one big, we go to dinners together.

It is a very modern approach to like what life after divorce could be. But I think people need to to show that there is a way to have a healthy divorce because I just remember saying to myself, there's no metal at the end of this life for like getting through every day. And I was like going to bed at 8.30 every night during like the really dark times because I was just like, I can't, I'm not happy. I'm tired and just don't want to do this. I'm like, this isn't life. This isn't how I want to live my life. And now I'm like, I started a company during COVID. And like when I'm with my kids, I'm with them and this is like working. So if anybody's like listening and they find themselves Googling, like should I get a divorce, like start doing the work for yourself because you have to

be prepared for that and you have to be the like unemotional state to go through a divorce. But then you can like figure it out. I also think you mentioned something earlier to like if the person that you're married to doesn't make you feel good and you don't like them. I'm not talking about love. You don't like them. Respect them. Yes. Like is very, very, I feel like it's not talked about it. Yeah. It's important to like the person that you're going to be around 24-7 for the next six million years. Yeah. And I think it's important to understand what relationship dynamic you want. Like, I want to do life with my person. Like, I want to build with them. I love building companies. I love creating. I want to do that with my person. you know and we were running daycare together like it was like what time will you be home okay

i'm going to go to the gym and then when i come back like you can go to the gym and then i'll do this like it was literally like we should have had like an asana board for this stuff because we were just like ships passing in the night and that's just that could work for some people some people have more avoidant like attachment styles and they're okay kind of being in their independent but that's just not me. Let me ask you this. You're a very confident person and obviously you can't do what you're doing

and take the chances that you're taking if you're not a confident person. Like speaking, I think, firsthand experience. It takes guts to do what you're doing and build what you're building and make the life choices you've made. Have you always been that way? Or is this something that's been learned?

Because the reason I ask, there's a lot of young people that listen to this show and it's a topic that comes up. Where does confidence come from? How do you become confident? All these things. So two things. I would say you fuck up a lot and you realize it's not that bad when you fuck up. Because like I was out like pretty low like three toddlers and being like I don't want to be in this marriage and I like didn't know if I wanted to switch my career. And when you're in a low point and you realize it's not that bad and you can still get through it. So for me it's been like I had a failed startup before. Like I've gone through and even like not that having. fertility treatments is ever, like, never a failure. But like when you go through hard things and you

come out and you're like, okay, I made it through another one, all of a sudden, the like other side of whatever wall you feel like is in front of you doesn't feel that scary. So that's number one. And number two, I, as I get older, I just don't care what people think as much. And I think that's the most freeing feeling. Like, I know you, we were, we were talking about. We were, talking about this a little bit before, but like even just now being single and like leaning into my sexuality or even exploring my sexuality post-divorce because I got engaged at 19. So in talking about that and sharing it, what I find is the more I put out the things that are going on in my head, I connect with people in real life and building that community.

Like we have an incredible community with House of Wise because women are like, I don't want to live in this, like, neat box of, like, my mom friends. And then I have friends that I maybe talk about sex with. And then I have, like, career friends that I talk about, how do I get to, like, the C-suite. That's not, like, how we live. We don't live neatly in those confines. And so for me, the more I just lean into the fact that I'm all of those things all of the time and talk about them, more people connect with that. And I feel more confident in continuing. that if that makes sense. Totally. Not caring what other people think is such an unlock. And it really is waking up tomorrow morning and just deciding that you just don't care what

anyone thinks. Yeah. Recently, you know, we moved to Austin and we had to get some new mattresses. Now, ever since doing this show, I've learned about the importance of sleeping on a non-toxic organic mattress. I didn't even know that there were mattresses that weren't organic and ones that were toxic, but that blows my mind because you're essentially spending eight to nine hours sleeping on a mattress. A third of your life. Breathing it in. And so is my baby, which is very important. Like, who cares about you? What about me and Zaza? Well, I sleep with you. So technically. Sometimes it depends on the night. And, you know, Boone's sleeping on a mattress, my dog. So we got to make sure everything is non-toxic and organic. And that is why we are using Birch. So Birch makes

organic non-toxic mattresses, they're made right here in America and shipped straight to your door with no contact delivery, free shipping, free returns, and 100-night sleep trial. I appreciate this because it's annoying to have to go to the mattress store and try everything. You just have it delivered to your door seamlessly. You can try it. You can see if you like it. You can see if it's the perfect mattress for you. And then you can either keep it or send it back. When we got it, it was so quick and fun to unbox, very, very efficient. I liked the process. The one that we ordered is called the Birch Natural Mattress and it has 2000 plus reviews. That is the one I would recommend. It is so comfortable. My mother-in-law, it even passed her test when she slept over. It keeps you cool at night. It's

soft but also supportive and most importantly, it's organic, which I love. So if you're looking for a new mattress, definitely check out birch living.com slash Skinny. You should know they have a 25-year warranty, which is amazing, and they offer all kinds of discounts for students, teachers, military, and first responders. Burch is giving $400 off all mattresses and two free eco-rest pillows at birchliving.com slash skinny. That's $400 off all mattress orders plus two free eco-rest pillows. You know what's, but I think I used to be harsher on stuff like this, like meaning I would, like if somebody was going through something, my mind, immediately. I mean, immediately goes to the worst places in the world and the worst circumstances.

I'm like, your shit's not that bad. Like, stop crying. Stop complaining. Yeah. And I realized my delivery's off and my empathy was off because even if, you know, like, we all may look at something like, that's not a big deal. Like, stop crying. Like you lost a bit, you lost a company.

No big deal. Like, get up and go again. But a lot of people like they put their whole, like their identity. It becomes their whole identity in this thing. But I think like the ex, I'm curious, like, when you were going through hard things where there exercises you did to contextualize like. Yeah. Is how bad this is.

Right. Because I always go to like, hey, I always go to like, hey, I could be dead or like this person has not, you know, I like go to like the most dark places. I'm like, oh, I'm actually like pretty good. So I have two frameworks. One is this 10, 10, 10 framework. Ooh, I can't wait. Yeah.

So I say, will it matter in 10 days, 10 months or 10 years? And I make sure to expand my emotions or contract my emotions accordingly. Because if it's not, for example, like little things used to set me off. Like I show up and like my hair appointment was like moved or something like, you know, That's like a dumb example. But you know what I mean? Well, your hair does look good. I can see why you'd be upset about that.

Blonds are very hard to keep up with. But will that matter in 10 months that my hair point was moved? No. So like let's constrict my emotional response accordingly. I use 10, 10, 10 a lot. I'll like take a step back and be like, I'm emotionally triggered by this thing. Like how much emotion should be allocated. The other one is kind of dark.

But I also do the I could die tomorrow. like is this really worth the thing that I'm going to lose my shit about? Yep. And death is this thing that I do think about probably more than the average person because I just am fascinated by the finiteness of life and the human experience. And why would I waste any time or energy on things or relationships, even friendships that take away from the, this one experience I get.

Yeah, I know that. I mean, I used to get stressed about things in business and I was, I was trying to think about the last thing that stressed me on a business. It's funny, as I've progressed in my career, obviously you're doing bigger and bigger things or hopefully you are and it's getting and the stakes are getting higher and higher and the risks are getting greater and greater and the stress and the pressure should be larger and larger, right? But I now like having a few years, nothing really stresses me out when it comes to business at all. Like even if it's something that's like not going right at all. And because the context is like, what stresses me out is like, is something going to happen to my wife? Is something going to happen to my daughter?

Is like, am I going to get ill? Am I going to get sick? Like, is there going to be, is something going to happen to my parents as they get older, like that stuff. And I'm like, when you measure it against stuff that really matters, you're like, who, like, whatever. You do tend to get stressed out in the morning over nothing, though. No, but, but what I'm saying is like, I don't, it's, yeah, let's be really honest. I constantly run like anxious, like with hot. Like, that's like, that's my, my natural state of being. cortisol level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't, like, things that I think that, like, if someone in the company comes and like, oh my God, this is the biggest deal, like, there's this

a problem. I'm usually the most level, calm person in it, but I used to not be like that. And I think the exercise is just like, again, like different perspective, taking a step back and being like, what really matters. Like if your kid gets sick or, you know, if you're sick. I think having kids really does. 100%. Yeah. For me, for sure. Like, once I had my kids, that I think that there's this identity shift where it's no longer about you. You. you. And so your your framing isn't just so self-consuming. It's like, okay, who am I to them? And how can I be the best version for them? And usually it's like to not get worked up about all those things because if you're stressed out all the time, you can't be present. You can't be there for your kids.

Yeah. And I found like I'm more motivated to do well because it's not just about me anymore, right? It's about the family and I want to provide. But I'm also not nearly as stressed because the things I worry about have really nothing to do with business. It's like the health of family and people I care about. I don't know if that's helpful to anybody, but I just think about it. Very helpful. I would like to know what it was like going through fertility treatments with a husband that you weren't feeling synergy with. You become so myopically focused on the goal. Yeah. That you're not thinking about that. Like my world became consumed with doctors appointments and blood tests and when's the next cycle. And then when we started doing actual treatments, it was like,

is this one going to work? Okay, next month. Okay, that was a miscarriage. Okay, next month. And it's so funny because you put on these blinders because now your goal changed. My goal was not to be happy. My goal was to have kids. So you live your life with blinders on based on what your goal at that time is. I think for me, my like check-in moment now being through all of that is I make sure that I'm not just blindly going down a path without intention. So now everything I do is like very clear intention because I feel like I was choosing things and doing things because I didn't have like a vision for what my life should be. I even said this to my therapist the other week because, you know, got through the divorce. And then I was like, I was that girl that woke up and put the like Instagram post on January 1st, 2020,

like, I'm going to have the best year of my life. I got through the divorce. like posted a thirst trap. I was like, here I am. And then COVID hits. And I was like, fuck. And so I was living in this survival mode for years. And so I finally woke up. I like moved to Miami. I'm like single, have my kids in school. And I'm like, I need to do some vision planning, like real vision planning because I started dating people that I was like, I don't, why am I dating these people? Like, this is not the type of person I want to be with. But it's It was just truly because I hadn't set this very clear vision of where I want my life to be. And so I think it's really important to do that work.

What does vision planning look like to you? I literally write down like where do I want House of Wise to be, you know, set very clear. Like you manifest that shit. You say every single day like this is going to be a fucking unicorn and I will do whatever it takes to be a unicorn. then from like a relationship standpoint, I say, I want to be with a partner who wants to do life with me, who I want to like go to conferences with and who maybe runs in similar circles, but like we get each other's shit. Like you guys are in parallel. Exactly.

We stand individually. No one has to lean on each other because when you start to lean on someone or someone is leaning on you, it's like holding up a brick wall. You can maybe do it for a second. two seconds, but like eventually you get tired and that will just like crush you. You got to be simpatico. Yeah. I think that you are very relatable because I talk to a lot of women in DMs or email or whatever

and I noticed that people have society's vision board as opposed to their vision board. These are two very, very different things. Society's vision board is the kids and the pets and the white pictures. it fence and the husband and and I'm doing this by this time. But what is like your actual vision board? Because my vision board looks completely different to society's vision board. So I think that's really important. It's an important exercise for people to do at home to differentiate those two. Well, it's a hard exercise because I don't want to generalize, but I will. I think the majority of people come up and grow up, you know, and this is my problem with the modern school system.

is like school system is you come up and it's like they're training everybody to be one way they're teaching everybody to succeed one way and so like the high majority of people go up thinking one way we get inspired and impressed by people that kind of break outside of that and do things differently but while that's going on until they've had that successful moment they're kind of ostracized right like you look at those people like oh that's weird they're doing that or that's weird they didn't get married at that time or like that's strange they left their husband because you know that's not what you do. And so what it does is it, it makes it difficult for people to break out and say, like, what do I really want? Because so many people are doing the same thing. And it's like,

you don't want to feel ostracized. Yeah. And when you think about imprinting, not like the Twilight version, but like cultural imprinting means what was on media, what were, what were TV shows like when you were in those formative years of like zero to five years old, right? So when you think about the people who raised us, what were they imprinted with, right? Leave it to Beaver. Literally. 1950s housewife. She's at home taking care of the man, right? And if we don't wake up, and I hate the term woke culture, but if we don't realize that that is being passed down subconsciously, it's generational imprinting that, like, I'm very excited for our kids because they're being imprinted with women who are like, I don't want to be a mom 24-7.

I love my kids. I don't want to be around them 24-7. And I want to, like, I should never feel guilty saying that. Like, I love my kids desperately. But, like, I don't want to be a mom 24-7. It should look like whatever you want to do. The biggest problem is, like, the pendulum, I think, swings to extremes, right? Like, if the one side is the extreme, leave it to Beaver and the other side is the extreme, like,

break the traditional family household and do something like I'm just using those as examples is you know it swings and people at started like this needs to be this way but then it goes the other way it needs to be this way my thing that I keep trying to say to everybody is there's nuance and if you don't actually believe and think in something that's being told to you or said or portrayed in the media like that's a problem right you need to be able to as an individual step back and like what do I actually think and feel about all of this there's not a lot of that going on at a high at a high level right like we all know that people like people were talking about there's some there's certain people that are scared to share their real opinions on let's just call the state of the world like there and and

to me that's a sad state of affairs because you're teaching a future generation that you're not able to speak up right whether you know you agree with whatever issues being you know thrown out there but i think that people need to like really do and that's why i asked you about your vision like what is the exercise that people can do that is going to serve them and actually make them happy i don't think a lot of people are doing that. I think they're just kind of going along in life. Well, I'm going to say therapy is the starting point of that exercise because it's all in the self-work. Because if you don't understand what your kind of gaps are or what your subconscious bias is, like even if you have a good on-paper childhood, there are things that you don't realize are driving

your thoughts, right? And so doing that work, that introspect. whether you do it with a therapist or you go, there's, you know, different apps or whatever. But you start with how was, how am I making choices or making judgments? Where do those come from? And are they really my own today based on what I view? Or is it the like five-year-old in me making that judgment? And then truly it's, I do like a. like a central nervous system scan to myself of like what's lighting me up, what's pinging my

central nervous system. And I listen to that and getting in touch with like what is bringing you joy. And I start to like the kind of micro vision planning like when I think about like a week or a month sprint is like am I, if I think about a door frame, do I have things standing in my door frame, whether it's people, tasks, relationships, whatever, that are blocking that door frame from me getting to the thing I'm wanting. And a lot of difficult decisions have come out of those kind of vision planning moments because I realize that maybe someone's sucking my energy that I cannot have right now. because energy is finite. You only have so much of it.

And if you want to put it towards something, otherwise everybody's just going to keep taking from you until you realize what you want to put it towards. And it becomes like Chinese torture. Literally. Like I just decided that I'm changing my number. It's nothing personal. I just want to have my 30 close friends and family to have my number.

I just don't, I think that if anyone wants to get a hold of me, they can get a hold of me on DM or, or email. Like, I don't need to have 8,000 contacts. It's just, it's like, how do you even, and it starts to just, just tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, like you said it earlier, like a thousand paper cuts. And I think putting boundaries around certain things like that, whether it's changing your number or maybe, you know, not checking your email every day. I check my email. I don't check my email every day. Because it's not productive to the overall goal of what you're doing.

Offense and defense is how I describe those two things. You and I could do a whole podcast on this. I 100%. People get so mad at me. I am not going to live in my inbox. It is not moving the creative needle for me. Nope. Gut health is all the rage. You've heard it everywhere. You've heard it on our podcast. We had a microbiologist on here that broke down the importance of the gut. He was so good too. I feel like we need to have him on for part two. We also had the founder of Just Thrive on and she told us all about probiotics and most important she talked about survivability. And I want to keep talking about this because I don't think people understand this when they're buying a probiotic. So the ability to survive the trip from your mouth to your

gut is so important. And most probiotic products fail to survive, which is so annoying. So most people are going to the grocery store buying a probiotic and it's not even surviving to their gut. And Just Thrive actually survives. Here is like a little insider tip too. I have found after research and talking to all these different people that what makes a good probiotic has nothing to do with the number of strains or refrigeration. That's marketing hype. You really want to know about the survivability. Just Thrive is designed by nature to survive. The strains put up an armor-like shell that protects them from harsh environments. Like I said, very important. I love their probiotic. I take it every single day. Tina also told me the founder that I could take a little bit of the

and give Zaza a little lick. I also give Boone to my Chihuahua, the pet probiotic, very much about it. It's vegan, non-GMO, gluten-free, dairy-free, and free from anything artificial. Totally safe for kids, you could mix it in their smoothie or even bake with it, and it doesn't lose its potency. Just Thrive supports beautiful skin, better sleep, and easier weight control. So you are going to save 15% off for an exceptional gut. Go to Just Thrivehealth.com slash Skinny and use promo code skinny. That's just thrivehealth.com slash skinny use promo code skinny. Well, there's certain, like, this is the perfect example of things that are expected that don't always pan out in the best way, right? Like, you're expected, especially in, you know, a company to answer every

single email right away or within a reasonable time. Like, it's become, it's become something in society that is just expected, but it's, but it's also become this incest, I think we're like, anybody can just ask anything of you any time. Or a tech. message. The text message is, I think text messages, I want to do a whole podcast on this. So intrusive. It's out of fucking control. If you text me on a Wednesday at 12 o'clock and you expect an answer at 1201, that is bat-shit crazy. You're coming into my time on my workday to ask me to do something. Like, I sometimes don't text back for two weeks. It's nothing personal. I just, I have a daughter. I have a husband. I have a business. Like you are being intentional. You are being

intentional with your energy and you have goals. And I think people feel, because everyone has access to everybody, you feel like you should. And I always tell my, like, team and my family, I'm like, we're shitting all over each other. Like, literally, I don't have to respond. And so the way we've actually structured our work culture, because I've gone deep and gone really nerdy on the nine to five and where it comes from. And it's obviously when it was industrial revolution, men were going into factories, making cars, whatever. But the nine to five doesn't exist anymore.

Like we're working on computers. We're like doing this stuff. And so for my team, we have like a 70% async, meaning not on computers, not at the same time, and 30% synced. So we have a couple of touch points throughout the week. But if we have like very clear goals that are tangible, and quantitative, and then we align on the strategy to meet those goals, then go do your job

in the best way that is for you. Because, like, for me, my cortisol levels are like you. When I wake up in the morning, my brain cannot stop. The second I get out of bed, I'm, like, firing on all cylinders. So I know I have to, from, like, 5 to 6 a.m., whenever I wake up until about 10 is when I get my best, like, offensive work done. If I need to do a deck or I need to, like, really think about something, that's my time. Then I have, like, my defensive time, which is, like, around 1130 until, like, two or three. I call defense is, like, when someone can come into my space. And then I shut off

because my cortisol levels crash around three. So that's when I need to go naturally get them back up and I'll, like, pop a strength gummy or whatever and I'll go work out. And then I've already gotten my stuff done for the day because I use that like efficient time when I'm firing on all cylinders. I don't feel guilty being completely off the grid or like posting that I'm at the pool. I don't fucking care if my investors see that because it's like I got what I needed to done for the day that I felt like that was my definition of success for the day. It's exactly what Tim Ferriss says in his book, The Four Hour Workweek. Yeah, that book changed my life. It's so incredible.

Everyone should read it. It says that when he was at an insurance, like a car insurance firm, that everyone would get to work at 9 o'clock and they would do all their cold calling from 9 to 5. He realized if he started work at 7.30 a.m. And he could get two hours of cold calling before everyone got into the office. That not only was he more efficient, he got all the customers before everyone. So he took a 9 to 5 job and he pushed it into 2 hours. The only caveat I would say is there's a lot of people that haven't actually read the book.

and they hear four-hour work week, and then they think, like... No, go read the book. Don't just... There's a lot of, like, working smarter, working more creative. For sure. Finding the angles, like, fine. You know, there's a lot of people that... It doesn't mean you actually work four hours.

Here's the way that I look at it. Go read the book. Yeah. I agree with you. Like, a company should just have goals and support systems to hit those goals. And then there should be accountability measures if you're not hitting the goals, right? Like, I don't care if... I tell my team all the time.

I don't care if you work in a tree in the Amazon if you get the goal done, right? But, like, if you can't, then there's maybe more accountability where then there is a more traditional office structure or a worse conversation. But I think, like, COVID's been interesting because there's a lot of people that don't want to go back to the office ever, which I understand. And I think that works for people that can hit their goals. But for people that can't and can't hold themselves accountable, it doesn't work. Yep. And so I think, like, this is.

You just have to be self-aware enough to realize. This is where there's nuances, right? Because people will look at something like, well, now every company is like, we've adopted a whole work from home culture. I get it. It's not going to be for everyone. because somebody's going to be sitting at home going, I need, I'm procrastinating, I don't know how to get my work done, I need supervision, I need accountability, I need mentorship, whatever. Then they're going to have to find a culture and a work place. We kind of offer both.

I think this is what's also important too where there's a lot of people that want to, like, that's where they, that's where they have their human interaction. Right. Like, they come for the culture. And if you take that away, then they're like, I'm sitting. We've had issue, especially with people that, you know, recent graduates that maybe have a couple roommates that haven't found their home and their significant other yet. And they're like, I come to the office to be with the people and you take that away and put me back in my. It's isolating. Yeah, it's isolating. So it's like this, I just think that like the biggest, I keep throwing the word nuance around because we've started dealing in a lot of absolutes at least in the most recent years. And I think it just doesn't work. Yeah, 100%. I think that you can apply that to everything. Everything. Yeah. literally. I'm going to take a little turn here and go off on a tangent, but you mentioned fertility, and we just had a fertility specialist on the podcast. Is there any advice that you would give to someone who's going through those treatments? And what did that look like for you? What was the process?

Was it like you froze your eggs and made embryos and had babies? Or was it not linear? Was it a whole, a whole situation? Yeah, for me, I have PCO, so I wasn't off. What is that if someone doesn't know? Yeah, polycystic ovarian disease. So you have cysts on your ovaries and so I wasn't ovulating. And so I was fortunate enough that I just had to go through IUI. What's that? Intro-uterine insemination, which basically means you do the shots, you figure out when you can ovulate, you do the shot, when to make you ovulate.

And then they basically turkey baster you so they can time it perfectly that you ovulate, they incestate. they inseminate you. They take your husband's sperm, like, and not a turkey baster, but like... It looks just like a turkey baster. So it like is a turkey baster, probably. And then they just squirt it up there. So that it's timed perfectly with the avidril shot that you take so that you inseminate it. What's the difference between just using a penis?

Not as efficient as the turkey baster. Yeah, turkey bister gets up in there and they literally say like, sperm, meat egg. Like you're going to like... During Thanksgiving, you're going to be like saving the turkey base. Oh, God. Wait, so was the process, you're saying that the process wasn't maybe as gnarly for someone that's doing full IVF? Correct. Okay.

So I have to, so once I went through my divorce, I decided to freeze my egg. So I have gone through that process because I was like, I don't think I want more kids, but I also was, you know, 32. And I didn't want to make any decisions for 36, 38. 40-year-old Amanda. Like, I think optionality is powerful. 100%. And so I froze my eggs. I have a lot of empathy for someone who has to go through that harvesting process because, holy fuck, it's a surgery. Like, I was out of it afterwards for a while. Like, I had to have, I asked them for like more morphine because it's like legit. They have to go in and they take the eggs out. So that's pretty. Would you recommend it like to do or do you think it was overwhelming? No, I highly recommend it if you have

means to do it because I don't stress about it now. Like I don't have that like cognitive overhead of up against time. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think women struggle with so much. And I think that that's why we lead and make decisions because we feel like we have this like stopwatch that's like, all right, got until whatever, 35 and then you're a geriatric pregnancy or whatever they call it. Right. And yeah. Yeah. Not to generalize sexes, but it's the opposite for men. Right. Right. Right. Like you're like, I have so much time. Right. Like, I could hold off until.

Dr. Gidear, though, did recommend that if you're a guy and you're over 21, that you should be beating your meat in a cup and saving it. So guys, don't think that you're, no, the guys are getting a little ego driven and cocky out there. Well, mostly because they're- Guys, you should be freezing your sperm. I told all my friends, I sat down with West and I said, yo, you need to freeze your sperm. But here's, here, this is a perfect example of where there's a mismatch, right?

Like, again, not to generalize every sex, but a lot. of women may have the feeling that they're up against time and that they need to make a decision early enough and men are the majority are thinking the opposite like I have so much time I don't need to make a decision till forever I have so many guy friends my age I'm in my mid 30s that are like yeah I don't got to worry about anything like I can wait till like 40 45 50 and it's like it's a mismatch there because if they're and I always tell my friends like if you're with their like I'll just use men and women if you're with your girlfriend and she's dedicating a large part of her life and she wants to have children with you.

if you're being selfish and taking, I'm talking to men, and taking those prime years aware, dragging her along because you're fine to, you know, wait for forever. That's not fair either, right? That conversation needs to exist. I have these conversations a lot because I'm 36. So if I date someone who's like little younger than me, they've never been married, never had kids.

And they're like, I want kids soon. I don't know if I do. And so I don't want to waste their time. But to your point, like men have more time. but it's like a real conversation that I find myself having all the time because I don't know whether to date younger or older because of people's timelines and the pressure they feel. My advice to you, and not that you're asking for it, but my advice to you would not to be giving age any energy at all, I would just put it out into the ether that you're open to young

or old or whatever it is and I think that'll come to you. Yeah. You seem like that type of person that will just attract whatever it is. I don't think you need to worry about age. Okay. And you, by the way, you look 30. You do not look 30. It's the Botox.

Yeah, well, I'm sure the guys are lined up. They're not. The guys are Googling you right now. What happens when you're a really, like, independent woman is that guys, I think, subconsciously want somebody to provide for and take care of. And I give off this energy like, I don't need you. Which truly, I've gotten to this place where I don't need a man. I want someone in my life. And that's a really wonderful place to be.

And I hope more women get there where it's like, get to the place where you love yourself so fucking much. And you've got your life in order that you're like, I don't need someone. I want someone. And then you pick differently. But no dating. Like I've had my dating profile tweeted out. Like, it's gnarly out there.

You've got to have, you've got to, again, like this is generalized it. You've got to find somebody that's completely self-secure and incompetent because, again, the majority of men, I believe they get intimidated by women like you, my wife, people that have their own shit going on that are independent. Again, that's because I think a lot of the way that we're brought up, right, just leave it to Beaver like, hey, the man provides for the woman. And all of a sudden if, you know, you're sitting with a woman who's got a venture-backed business that she's created on her own and she doesn't really need you and she's got her own income and she's got her own, like, that's intimidating because you're like, where do I play into this? And also maybe she's got a

dildo. It's like, you know, what are you good for? And the turkey baster. And also it's She based her in like someone who doesn't leave the seat up. Yeah, sex gummy. Like, what are you guys good for? Share says men should be the dessert. And you know what? Sorry, guys. That, I've looked at, I didn't be able to articulate that until I heard that quote.

But my whole life I've looked at men as the dessert. And men are not. I don't mind being looked at as a dessert. That's fine. Nice. You are not even the amuzh-boosh, bitch. At least I'm not just like the appetizer or the like. You're not the snack.

You're the dessert. You're the dessert. It's like you can compliment. a salad or something. Everything else that I'm doing. And sometimes you just got a sugar craving and you need a good dessert. Yeah. So let's take another leap here.

You're going through life. You have all your kids. You have all this going on. And then you get the bright idea. I'm going to go and take more punishment and start another company. Massacist. Yeah. That's five billion paper pets.

And I want you to get granular here. I want to talk about the business. But I also, I think that. what you do, what Lorne does, maybe even dare say what I do, like let's call it this world of entrepreneurship. It's glamorized and glorified. It's kind of like the first time within the last 10, 15 years that it is. And I think there's a lot of people that think they want to do this kind of thing. And I always say like, hey, it's not for everybody. It's 100% not everybody could win. And there's nothing wrong with not doing this. Like, I'm not the first person to say this,

but the number two at Google or Facebook or Amazon like makes a hell of a lot more than all of us. Right. There's something to be said about working with great people in organization. It's a different type of, I think, thought process to say, hey, I'm actually going to go and be an entrepreneur and do this. I want you to talk about the thought process and what goes into that because people may think they want it, but they may not always know what goes into it. The data is in the people have spoken. The audience wants to know more about finance, investing, saving, and in particular, they also want to know about cryptocurrency. Obviously, this is a topic that touches everyone's life. Everyone wants to know how to be more financially savvy, save more, make more, all of those things.

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I couldn't raise capital. This was before it was like, people were, focused on investing in female founders. And it was horrendous. And I had a baby at home. And I was spread way too thin. And I'm like, I'll never do that again. I love corporate culture. Like I get to clock in, clock out, you know, whatever. HR benefits. All those things are wonderful things. Then what happened was when I was going through my divorce, three kids under the age of four, I really, I went through part of my like self work was I started to look at like gut health and and I wanted to just make sure that I was put back together like after having babies. I wanted to

see how my body was working. And what I started to get really, really interested in is the role of alcohol and how it was affecting me because I was already having anxiety attacks. Like literally there were days that I was going from like a courtroom to like CBS go. morning for like to be on air. My anxiety was crazy. And to the point like that anxiety feeling when you're like dizzy and you don't know if you can catch your breath. What do you mean a courtroom to see? What do you mean? Like going through my divorce proceedings. Got it. And then having to go straight to like be on camera. Got it. And it was just in your in your role at the company, we're just like going and doing press or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And so I started to get really interested in what alcohol was

doing to my body and how alcohol was affecting my sleep and affecting my anxiety. And then And so for the first time in my entire life, because I was raised in the Midwest, pretty conservative upbringing where alcohol totally okay, but cannabis, holy shit, no. Like, that's a drug, right? I turned to cannabis, like, literally out of desperation. I'm, you know, an executive at a global company, three toddlers running around. And I was using CBD during the day. I had microdose THC.

I was never high. People started to, like, notice a difference in me and be like, what have you done? Like what, what's changed? Because like all of a sudden I have energy and I, my anxiety is like more manageable. And I was getting my workouts in. And I was feeling really good. And so. And no alcohol or alcohol sometimes? So I'm an alcohol sometimes. I don't think things, like for me, I don't have an alcohol problem. And so I, I joke that I'm like, I don't drink on a school night. Like that's my thing that I say when I go to like networking events, but more so I got curious about why I was using alcohol. And was it really like me making that choice or was it to solve a pain point? Was it numbing something? Was it because I was at an event and I had social anxiety? Like what was the driver of me going to grab the glass of wine or two or whatever? And now to the same thing. And now to the same thing. And now to the same. day for me, it's because I am making the choice that I really want that drink and I know it's

going to have consequences. I know I might not feel good. Like my birthday was last week and I got hammered and I went dancing. That was awesome. But like, I may not drink for three more weeks, you know, because I don't feel a need to, but I made a choice. Like, I knew I was going to go have some tequila and have fun with my girlfriends and that's fine. But so anyway, I started using cannabis and started telling people about it. and so many like mom friends or even just like executive friends like in my networks, like, wait, you use cannabis? Like tell me more. And I think the industry hasn't spoken to someone like me. And so that started festering as an idea. And when you have been a founder before

and you know you've caught the bug because you start thinking about it. And then all of a sudden you start like creating a brand identity in your head. And then all of a sudden you're like in your spare time writing down things you want to do with it or what you could do with it. And then I started thinking about product formulas and the fact that CBD, the more I learned about CBD, it has such a powerful binding agent. And what I mean by that is when you pair it with an active ingredient, whether it's like melatonin for sleep or, you know, we have active ingredients in our sex gummy, it heightens the effects of them. And so when I started to work with chemists and play with different formulas, I saw that you could actually have less of an active ingredient, but a more powerful

effect. So like our strength gummy is a pre-workout gummy, which most people are like, CBD is a downer, not an upper. But when you pair it with the right amount of caffeine, which we only have 60 milligrams caffeine, it heightens the effects. Yeah. And so you actually feel like it's more, but you don't have the jitters. You don't have that come down. All of those things that happen when you take a normal pre-workout. But so to get back to the granular process, I'm leading, I'm still at the knot day job, but then I find myself at night sending emails being like, what do you think about this? Or like, and for me, entrepreneurship is this like snowball.

That's the very top of the mountain. It's just a snowflake. You're like, it's just a tiny idea. And then you send one email and that snowflake picks up another snowflake. Then you have one conversation with someone and they're like, oh my gosh, you should really talk to this person. And then you go have that conversation. The snowball just keeps going.

And by the end, it just is getting bigger. I call it building momentum. Yeah. It's the same thing. Yeah. And so halfway down the hill, I'm realizing I have a pretty big snowball now. And it's outweighing my thoughts of my day job. And so for me, I couldn't just be the like 27 year old tech bro that quits their job and eats ramen.

I have three fucking kids at home. So I raised a pre-seed round. I took two weeks off of work. I drove my kids during COVID to Illinois. I took two weeks off of work. And I raised half a million so I could create the products. I want to talk about that first on the momentum thing. I think I look at project.

I just call it like a business or a project or a brand. I look at it to the point where like if you can build enough momentum that you personally could not stop it even if you wanted to. Exactly. Like that's the goal. Right. You build something that gets, it catches on and has such a big idea and it gets, you know, so many other people attract to that idea working either within or on or outside of it that like even if you were like as the founder saying, hey, I don't want this, I don't want to do this anymore. It gets bigger without you. That's how I felt. Yes. Like literally people would come to me. I'd have a conversation. They're like, you've got to talk to this person. So you'd follow those breadcrumbs. But all of a sudden I was like, this is becoming bigger than me. Like I'm following this just like gravitational pull that I'm getting. And. like clubhouse was huge during COVID. And so I'd jump in and share what I was working on.

All of a sudden, I'd have inbound from investors. And I was like, what is happening? And so I, we launched December of last year with our first three skews, sleep, sex, and stress. Because for me, it's like, we have to open up a conversation around the fact that women need help in all of these areas. And we have tons, we have editors and we have people who are creating content around all of these things, but then we also have the products that can help. So we have in-house sex experts, sleep experts, et cetera. But yes, we launched in December. I still had a half-time job because, again, I still needed to keep the lights on. So I took on a half-time CMO role. So I went from like a full-time job to a half-time job. And I told that that founder, I said, I'll be your

part-time CMO. Until? Until I raised the seat. We were traveling recently, and guess who came to the rescue? Bight, okay? Bight is reinventing personal care by making products that are good for you and the planet. First of all, did you know that over one billion plastic toothpaste tubes are thrown out every single year? And they end up in landfills and oceans. That is so crazy. So they have this hero product, and this is what we took on vacation with us.

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And I don't get all that nasty chemical in my toothpaste that's going in my mouth. You should also know that I looked into bite and everything's made with clean ingredients, no harsh chemicals, sulfates, or artificial dyes or flavors ever. So their goal is sustainability and clean ingredients. That's the center of everything that they do. They're certified carbon neutral, cruelty-free, vegan, and palm oil. Free, all packaging and shipping materials are refillable, recyclable. They also taste really good.

These little tablets are absolutely amazing. Like I said, pop one in your mouth and brush your teeth and you're good to go. Bite is offering all skinny confidential him and her listeners 20% off your first subscription order. You are going to go to trybite.com slash skinny or use code skinny at checkout to claim this deal. That's T-R-Y-B-I-T-E dot com slash skinny. and definitely get the dry toothpaste tablets. Let's talk about the seed person. And the only reason I've asked you this is I just think, like, what you're doing is incredible.

But there's a lot of people. Let's just focus on women, founders that want to start a company. And, you know, these questions come into us. Like, how the hell do you raise capital? Who do you talk to? What's the process? Like how much? All of these things.

And it's overwhelming. It's daunting. Right. And I'd be curious to think to know about how you thought about that and executed it to begin with. Yeah. So I got really active on. Twitter because a lot of investors are there. They're having conversations. And if you decide to go institutional capital route, you have to be very, very intentional. Distinguish, again,

like, I'm going to like really dumb this down for every. I don't say dumb. I want to really like institutional versus friends, family, angels. Sure. So institutional is like a venture capital firm. Like they bring in money from wealthy people who they call like LPs, etc. They bring in money. and then they have to invest that money. So they'll raise a big, big fund, and then they allocate money out of that fund to different investments, which, you know, as a founder,

you're hoping to get a chunk of that. With VC or institutional capital comes like a board, somebody's on your board. They're telling you what they think. They have ideas. They are pushing you to hit metrics. Versus friends and family, Angels is a term that is commonly used.

An angel is just someone who gives you money and says, go see what you can do with it. And they're typically not breathing down your neck as much and it turns out a little bit looser. Exactly. VC and institutional are bigger capital injections. So that's when you can raise like a $1 million or a $2 million.

And that allows you to grow faster, right? In hindsight, though, like if you were giving advice to your younger self, would you say to go institutional first or would you say start out doing the friends and family route? Depends on what you're building. If you need capital to just cut POs, then go friends and family. Raise what you need to go build it out because I know so many female founders. Like female founders, this is why they're so successful, but they don't get back,

is that they're so scrappy. And they figure out how to make it work. And so I think, depending on what you're building, figure out how much you need. Because I think tech bros have global. glorified. I raised $20 million at this valuation and I'm so awesome. Like, that doesn't fucking matter. It's like, did you build a like profitable business is what I care about? So figure out what you actually need money for like POs, like cutting a purchase order to get a physical product, right? That takes money. And if it's like 50,000, 100,000, go out and find angels in your community.

You go, like I go on to like angel list or crunch base, which are two just like, websites that you can go to and you can see what people invested. And then get on Clubhouse, because a lot of investors are on there, not as much anymore because we're now back and open. But like I said, I spent a lot of time on Twitter and you just start following a couple of investors. Then you see them interact with a founder or an investor. And it's important to also find founders who are either like a tangential space or even in your space because they're talking to people on Twitter that you want to talk to. And then you just ask you DM people and you say, hey, I saw you were talking to, you know, whoever, would you mind introing me? I would love to

talk to them. Or you just DM the person directly because, like, I have over 50,000 followers and my DMs are open. Like, people DM me all the time and I answer. You strike me as someone who figures it out. There's a lot of people that will ask questions like, how do I start a blog? How do I start a business? And my advice is always the same. You got to figure it out. You got to figure it out. No one's going to hold your hand through it. One step.

Is there advice that you can give to someone who's sitting there stumped right now? If you're spending so much energy wanting someone to tell you what to do, you're focused on the wrong things. 100%. You're spending so much energy asking people to tell you how to do something. Or what about a forever student? Correct. Someone who's always reading every book and can't.

consuming every podcast at some point, you have to get off the podcast. Go do it. Yeah. Go do it. Because the best teacher is failure and experience. The only reason I know how to do what I'm doing now is because I failed for three years with my first one. And that was okay. That was the best MBA like I could have had because now I know what a term sheet is. I know how to raise capital. I know how to talk to investors. I didn't know how to do that in the beginning. So it's okay. do something, fail, fail fast if you need to, and then you'll feel better the next time. Yeah. I also think, and this is the last thing I'll say about capital. I think a lot of first time, second, you know, founders, they get in trouble because their goals are not aligned

with their investor's goals, right? Like, if you take money from an angel and they're like, hey, you know, I just want you to build a great business. Let's say it's a family member. I'll just use a simple example. Like, they just want you to succeed. And maybe you're going to hold on to that business for a few years. And if it turns into something else, great. you go take on institutional money, they might say, hey, success to me looks like you 10 or 20xing this. And if you don't do that, this is not a successful model. And I'm going to push you to do that. And you may, I may run your company to the ground by pushing you to do that, but that's my model. So I think if you are a founder and you're going to raise capital,

make sure your goals and what you want to do with the company is aligned with what your investors want you to do. A lot of people get in trouble with that shit. Yes. I'm going to switch the conversation to orgasms. Okay. Well, that's, as I hold my mic. As I hold my mic, like I'm cuffing your balls. We talked off air about how you have this sex gummy that I am obsessed with. I love it to take one before I have sex. And I notice that my orgasm is so much more intense. Yep.

I think orgasms are a subject that are not talked about enough. Guys are allowed to have orgasms all day long and masturbate. But if you bring up a woman having an orgasm, it's like taboo, which is so weird. how does the sex gummy work to give you such a great orgasm? Yeah. Well, I love that you said that. Like, everything that we've been conditioned to think about in sex and heteronormative sex is that it's sex is for a man's pleasure and that it ends when he orgasms. And I love that we're starting to create content and now products for women.

And we always say, like, partner is optional, pleasure is not. like your pleasure, like sex is for pleasure, not just for pleasing someone else. And so that's why sex was so important for me, especially like exiting a marriage, entering this new stage, but more so becoming a mom because when you become a mom and if you're done having kids or even if you're not, there's this weird thought cycle in society that you're no longer able to be a sexual being or embrace your sexuality because it's like, oh, no, your utilitarian purpose is now done.

You had sex for kids. So, like, don't post that bikini picture. Like, what are you trying to do? And I am so for, like, just saying, fuck that. Yeah, you see it, like, a woman that has kids that post a picture. Like, it's glorified, but if a woman that has children does, it's like, what would your kids think of you?

Right. Yeah, yeah. Like, you're married. Why would you do that? And it's like, no, my sexuality is for me and my pleasure is for me and masturbation is for me. And like the thing that we're trying to really have a conversation around is like the benefits of masturbation or orgasming in general. It releases oxytocin. It actually helps with stress and anxiety to answer your question

about what the sex gummy does. So there are three active ingredients and they all kind of help with the same thing, which is increasing blood flow and increasing lubrication. So what does increasing blood flow actually do? Like if you have more blood flowing and you touch a part of your body, you're going to feel it stronger, right? So increase blood flow to your vagina, to your clitorial area. Like, that is going to increase the sensitivity of it. And then when you have an orgasm, it will be stronger because all of those things are now have more blood flow to them. I mean, it's like an erection, right?

Erection happens because blood is flowing to the penis. Did you know that's why you get boners? I had no idea. I just learned that. Are you crazy learned? I don't know if you learned that. I learned that. Listen, that was one of the first things that was on my study guide.

I figured that out a long time ago. I know that this is true because I've been a human guinea pig to it. I'm telling you, sex on these gummies, it enhances the whole experience. It's like, who cares about him? It's all about me. So that's the other thing. So the CBD in them allows you to get out of your head because we operate. because we operate like literally from here up all day.

And then when you take CBD, all of a sudden you're operating from here down. And you're, and with the increased blood flow, you're like, oh, I can now pay attention to how that felt and what that felt on my neck or what that felt. You know, like you're feeling it because you're not up here thinking about, did I send that email? Did I do this? Like, was I a good parent today? Like, whatever. You're out of here and then you're into here. The strength, I'm assuming that the blood flow helps when you work out, correct?

Well, so the active ingredients, so it's different active ingredients for strength. So it is caffeine, natural caffeine, which only 60 milligrams, but the CBD makes it feel like more. Because if I take, if I drink like a power drink or something, I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. Yeah. And so I was a personal trainer, an ACE certified group fitness instructor for many years. And so that's why the pre-workout was really important to me, because there's not a lot of very simplified pre-workouts for women that are designed for like a 45 to 60 minute workout like most women aren't going to the gym and having like a leg day as much as tic-tok wants to tell me they are i agree so oh my god leg day's tomorrow that's gonna be you got leg day but i got to hear about that

for the next day i dread it don't even bring it up because i can't i can't hear it's triggered you just triggered something i'm sorry please i can't talk no leg day okay i'm gonna roof of you with i just said it because i know my wife just gets irritated about it Can anyone take CBD? Can you be pregnant? Can you be nursing? Can you be at any walk of life? Okay, so I'll say two things. One, the FDA won't put money behind actual studies for a variety of reasons. They just passed the first, you know, CBD approved drug for epilepsy. They're starting to. We're still at the kind of beginning stages. I work with a research lab that's based out of Israel to prove efficacy. So that way we actually can do user research and in cases. studies, but the boilerplate language is you need to talk to your doctor. The thing I will say from my own personal experience is going through postpartum depression and anxiety, my choices were getting on anxiety medicine when I was breastfeeding or trying cannabis. And I wanted to try something

that for me, I felt like I could control a little bit more. And again, every person is different. So you need to talk to your doctor about what you need. But mine, I felt like I could regulate with CBD. and I used it, the way I used it, was I would take a gummy or whatever as I was breastfeeding so that I knew that it's just like drinking alcohol. They tell you to drink while you're breastfeeding, right? Because it will take about an hour to get into your bloodstream. Huh. Right.

Like, I would be like drinking a beer because beer helped with breast milk for me. I would be drinking a beer while I'm like nursing my kids because that's not going to get into the bloodstream until about 45 minutes later, hour later, and that's not the milk that's going into them. And then by then your body has processed it by the time you're feeding again. That makes sense. Yeah. Going back to the strength gummy, when you work out, what do you feel when you're working out? Yeah.

So that one has natural caffeine, CBD, and beetroot juice plus B vitamins. The beetroot juice is kind of the magic formula because if you've ever read about it, it increases oxygen flow to your muscles more efficiently and effectively. effectively, so you don't fatigue as fast. Because obviously if you have oxygen, you don't cramp, you don't fatigue. That sounds like something. Do we have the strength one at the house? Yeah. I know we have the strength one. I'm going to try that strength one tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I know he's getting, look, he's flexing his muscle. We get it. We get it. We get it. I love, I love the sex one. I was going to ask you another thing. Can you take the sex and then the sleep

one right after? Is that too? It's too much. No, you can totally take both. Okay. I'm going to just go into like a coma. Yeah. No. But a good one. You would have to take a lot of CBD. Can you make a calming, peaceful waking up one for him? Try the stress one. So I put the stress drops in my coffee. Oh.

Yeah, I got to get on the, I got to get a routine. When you're asleep with your mouth open, I'm just going to put a couple of drops before you wake up. He wakes up. He's so calm. No, that's something, I mean, listen, I've tried a lot of things.

I don't know how to, like, if my eyes open, sounds like we're similar. Like, I'm, like, it's just like, okay, I got to go. I can't, I can't lay down. Like, morning sex for me is like an oxymoron. Like, I am,

going like crazy in the morning and whenever like somebody leans over and they're like, hey, you want, I'm like, fuck off. She gets mad because she's like, let's cuddle. I'm like, I'm awake now. That means I have to get out of the bed and I have to go outside the door. I just, like, chill vibes in the morning. You have good cortisol at us in the morning. I just, you're blessed.

He's going to live a lot longer than me. For sure. That slammed doors at 6 a.m. and opened the door when you were sleeping and said, time to get out of bed. Like, I lived in a family that was like, I woke up to smooth jazz music. and incense going.

My dad's actually from Illinois as well. He's one of those dudes back in the day, five, six in the morning, whenever time I had to get up. Door swings wide open, lights full bright, get up.

If he turns on the closet light when I'm waking up, I cut his dick off. Like I don't turn on the lights in the morning. It's so easy. If you were to tell our audience. I'm like Mr. Magoo in the morning, like going in the dark, you know.

Laser beams. You're like crawling on. If you were to tell our audience one gummy to start with, what would that be? I would start with the sleep gummy because to me, sleep is the foundation for everything. Great tip. If you get a bad night's sleep, your cortisol levels stay high and elevated. Like if you ever track things like this, I've done cortisol level tracking. They stay elevated all day.

And what happens is cortisol levels, when they're elevated, they suppress your natural production. of other things, like natural melatonin, which you need to fall asleep at night, like libido-enhancing chemicals. And so then you can't fall asleep the next night on your own or you're tired during the day and you reach for that glass of wine or whatever. So I would start with sleep just so you can like start with like a good base. I love the CBD. I love your CBD and I and I obviously like we've partnered. But I think that sleep is so important. And when you taught, we were talking early about alcohol. Lauren and I just cut where like, what, almost 60 days of no alcohol

and it's like, we'll go back to drinking. I'm not one of those people that's going to stop forever. But I wanted to do this exercise and say like, okay, what happens if I got rid of this substance and substituted? And like, the first thing I think is better quality of sleep. And a lot of people think they don't sleep well, but if you're constantly using alcohol and disrupting your sleep,

like I think maybe one thing they can try is use the house of wives sleep one, get rid of alcohol for a little bit and just substitute and see what changes. Because a lot of people like sleep, alcohol fucks up your sleep really bad. That's the biggest thing I've noticed. People don't realize because you fall asleep fast with alcohol. But what happens is your REM cycles, you're supposed to complete like three to four REM cycles. You don't.

And your sleep efficacy, like your deep sleep. So you should have about 20% of your sleep every night should be in deep sleep. With alcohol, it's like way less. Yeah. So that, like deep sleep is when you do like cellular repair, all the things. things that you actually need to do to feel better. And you just stay in that like top light sleep all night. But people are fooled because you're tired at night after you have two glasses of wine.

You fall asleep really fast. You're like, I'm asleep great. I think it's also like, again, I'm not a woman and so I can't. But I just listening to you, my wife and some others and obviously doing your media, like access to a lot of women, I think like pre and postpartum when you're getting sleep deprived all the time. It's fucking with your hormone so bad. Right? And then it's like, people don't realize like how important getting a good

call. Even if it's not the full eight hours, just that quality sleep. And with alcohol and all these things, you're not getting that. No. For House of Wise, what is next? What are you working on? Give us like what the landscape is now. Yeah. So as a VC-backed founder, you're kind of always

fundraising. That's just like now the name of the game. A lot of work. That's a full-time job. It's a full-time job. But we're growing. Like we're starting to get a lot of inbound with wholesale retail. So we're building out that kind of vertical, which is exciting. Like we just, it was very surreal. We had our first little boutique in Florida. They like posted a picture that they had our gummies.

And I was like, wait, this is happening. That's amazing. It was really surreal. Cool feeling. Really cool. It's cool to create a physical, I mean, you know, a physical product when you see it in people's hands, there's like. There's nothing better.

No, it's awesome. I mean, sex on the gummies pretty good, but there's, that's pretty good. Sex is great. but have you ever built a product that people like use? And yeah, just growing. Like now it's, we're only 10 months old, which feels crazy to say because I feel like I've been doing this. Like I look back and I'm like, we were still shipping out of my garage in April of this year.

And now we're in a warehouse and doing all the things. So now it's just like getting more people to hear about it and try it. And subscriptions are big. We just launched subscriptions so people can have it now delivered every month. So yeah, it's just growing. I can't wait to see where you are in the next 10 months. You can come back on the podcast anytime. You're so interesting.

I feel like you're so multifaceted and there's so many directions to go with you. Where can everyone find you and your company? Pimp yourself out. Oh my gosh. We will do a discount code in this episode, you guys. And maybe we can talk offline about doing a giveaway too, which I'll include it. Where can everyone find you in the company? So if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's mostly like behind the scenes of my day-to-day

and my kids and everything that's at Gets A.M. And then I share a lot of the building and public stuff on Twitter. So that's Amanda M. Gets. And then Houseofwise.com if you're interested in trying the products. Huge fan. Get the sex gummies. Give one to your partner. Partner optional. But yes. They taste good too. Yeah. I love a gummy. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for making the trip. Thank you. Amanda is giving you guys 20% off your first purchase. I would get the sex gummies. All you have to do is use promo code Skinny to redeem your discount at houseofwise.co. That's promo code Skinny for 20% off your first purchase. Get the sex gummies. Trust me. And then we're also doing a little giveaway with House of Wise. If you want to win some

gummies, all you have to do is tag a friend on my latest post at Lauren Bostic and make sure you're following at House of Wise on Instagram.