Your Happy Hour - Follow Your Joy

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

In this episode, we chat with co-founder of Une Femme Wine, Jen Pelka about our latest theme for April - Follow your Joy. What is joy? Why are we searching for it? Where do we find it? And then once we've seen it, how do we consistently follow that feeling? Jen shared the importance of joy in personal and professional life, entrepreneurial journeys, routines for happiness, and the power of intentional living. Une Femme Wine is all about celebrating the big moments, small victories, & everything in between - just up our alley in living your Feels life!The Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday feels and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine and it's amazing to have you here. Joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well, whatever it is, this moment is just for you. And we're back with another episode, a big welcome to the field space this week. Whatever you've been up to, I hope it's been great so far.

And we're actually starting a new theme. So we're on April and each month we are unpacking different themes, different topics that are quite pertinent about being human and a working professional. and this month's theme brings me a lot of happiness to talk about. And the theme is follow your joy. So it's a bit of my motto in life, I guess, and something that intrigues me a lot. You know, what is joy? What does it mean to us?

Why are we actually searching for it? And where do we find it? Maybe for each one of us, it's different. And then once we've kind of seen joy or, you know, experienced it, how do we consistently keep that feeling in our life? life. So I'm really privileged today to kick off this theme with a guest that I'm also grateful to get to know a bit more. And I was saying earlier, you know, I really actually don't know how I stumbled upon you, Jen, but I'm super happy that I did. I must have been on like some rabbit hole

the one day looking for wine and I can. I don't know, but a really, really big welcome to the field space to the your happy hour series on the Fields podcast. It's wonderful to have you here. Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. And I want to give a quick introduction to who you are, but I also feel like it would be so lovely for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your journey. But you are the co-founder of Infam Wine.

So I really love this name being in Paris and loving everything French. And I think it's really apt to be talking about this because I know I saw on your Instagram that your bio says for celebrating the big moments, the small victories, and everything in between. So with the feels, we're always talking about our first sip of the weekend, and how do we celebrate life? How do we build a field's life that we want to celebrate every day? And so, yeah, it's very topical,

and I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you came into being in the space that you are now, and I know you've walked an incredible journey, so we can talk about that a little bit more. Well, yeah, so thank you so much again for having me on. It's really great to be here, and I love thinking about topics like creating more joy and noticing more joy in your life. I think, especially as I've gotten older and matured more into my role as a CEO, I've come to realize that enjoying every day is so incredibly important. And finding things that are really joyful and

very fun in your work are essential to staying motivated and inspired and creating interesting things for your customers and also keeping your team as engaged as possible. So I think it's a very important topic. So yeah, so I started Unfem about six, seven years ago now when I had two champagne bars, one in San Francisco and one in New York called The Ridler. And both of those locations were these incredibly beautiful jewel box champagne bars, both of which were all of our investors were women. So we had 33 investors in San Francisco, 40 in New York, and just a really incredible community of women who loved the idea of getting together to drink champagne and dress up and have a lovely night out. And one of the things that we started noticing was that a lot of our guests were women

and a lot of them were asking for wines made by women winemakers. And a lot of times we would feature wines made by women winemakers on our menu, and they would outsell everything else. And I said, why is there not a brand that specifically is all about this? And so I launched Unfem really as a response to what our guests were asking for at the Ridler. And we launched into partnership with a small handful of women winemakers whose wines we already knew, already loved. And we originally thought that this was really going to be a brand for us just at the Riddler.

And it turned out that friends of ours wanted to carry the wines at their restaurants and cool shops wanted to pick up the wines, et cetera. And so the brand has really grown into a big brand in the U.S. And we feel incredibly grateful that not only did our customers at the Riddler want to drink wines made by women, but it turns out that people all across the country are. And so we closed those two bars because, of course, COVID, which is obviously incredibly challenging and frustrating. But that being said, now I get to work full time on UNFEM. And I'm always finding ways to stay inspired and engaged and thinking about what our customers might want from a wine brand that might be a little bit different than what's out there from other brands. Amazing. Well, please send some of that our way.

I mean, I know it's like to have competition. I won't tell the fringe, but I think it would be so wonderful. And I agree. I think there's such a place for what you're doing in the world. And I mean, it obviously comes like you say with challenges, like having to say goodbye to certain things, open up new doors to new things. But that's part of the entrepreneurial journey, I think, and part of finding your joy and what you do. So what does the topic kind of mean to you? What does your journey look like in finding your joy through all of this adventure that you've been on? Yeah, I'm definitely a leader who follows my gut quite a bit. and who I think at the end of the day I'm probably a combination of two things.

I think I am really a creative, especially. I love food, wine, hospitality, entertaining. That in my life has translated now to cooking a tremendous amount at home. We have a big, beautiful culinary garden. I just planted a big floral cutting garden this year. And I really love having people over for really big, beautiful feasts and, you know, just bringing our community together around our table, whether it is in the kitchen, where I'm sitting, or if it's outside under the stars, you know, at night. I live in Sonoma with my husband, who's a restaurateur. He owns a group of Greek restaurants called Suvla in San Francisco. And so a lot of the people in our lives are people who also find joy.

around food and wine and hospitality. And so as a leader of a brand, I like to think about where are those moments in someone's day and someone's life where we can bring a little spark of joy or commemorate a moment that is important and special that places a bit more emphasis on those joyful moments so that they can really celebrate them. And our tagline at Unfem is pairs well with fun.

And so we're always looking for moments where people are sort of unexpectedly having fun and might enjoy a glass of wine. And so for us, that's about everything from, of course, moments around the table, but also where might you want to drink a glass of wine while you're having a great time? That could be at a concert. It could be at a basketball game. It could be swimming in the pool or boating or on a ski slope. So we like to think about ways of taking some of the pretension away from fine wine and bringing great wines to people in a really accessible way that help them to punctuate those moments of happiness and joy.

I love that. Yeah, no, no, that's definitely we need more of that experience in the world for sure. Especially now. Everything is so heavy right now. I think it's our own responsibility to find moments of levity and joy and peace and happiness and to also make sure we're filling our own cups with things that are really feeding us, just as much as we think about our diet around the table. We should be thinking about what we're ingesting from a media standpoint and a social media standpoint,

what podcasts we're listening to, what books we're reading, how often we're out in nature, all of those things I think really help to ground us, whether we're founders or we are people who are working for other people or or those of us, I mean, I have so many friends right now who are looking for jobs, et cetera, but you've got to stay plugged in and happy and finding the joy in every day. Yeah, no, agreed, agreed, agreed. And what do you find is that for you? Like, what grounds you, what makes you happy in your day? Well, my husband and I, we have a pretty rigorous morning routine. It's very fun and very, very, very, happiness inducing but it's very consistent and we do it during the week and on the weekends so wake up

um i don't use an alarm but my dog we have a big 95 pound puppy who's a bernice mountain dog mixed with a great pyrenees so she's this huge happy one-year-old puppy so she comes and wakes us up in the morning and around six or seven and the first thing i do is read for about an hour in bed we also I will say we moved our coffee maker to the bedroom, which has been an incredible life hack. And so we set the coffee the night before. It starts going at seven. So one of the two of us will get up, get coffee, and we drink coffee in bed, which is like really such a joyful thing to do. And then I'll read for an hour.

I always read fiction in the morning. And a lot of times I'll read nonfiction sort of to cap my workday at the end of the day, especially leadership and business-oriented books. And the books that I like to read are generally books that are recommended by friends or things that I see on social media that are often books with a woman-centered protagonist or written by a woman. Not always the case, but often the case. And I tend to read books that feel really inspiring and beautiful and happiness-inducing

as opposed to, I don't read a ton of murder mysteries or fantasy. I like to read books that kind of stir, like, pull on my heartstrings. And then from there, we'll do a couple New York Times games. So we always do wordle connections, the mini crossword, and then a game called Betweenal. And then from there, my husband will take the dog for a walk. We are very lucky that we live across the street from these beautiful vineyards. so he'll take the dog to the vineyards and then I'll do a workout.

Generally, either yoga or Peloton or those are kind of my two most common. And then from there, I make us a protein smoothie and then we start our day. So I know we've always started our day for the first few hours doing things that make us feel happy and strong and healthy and inspired. But I try not to get too into my email or anything like that for the first part of the day. I think that's extremely different for how other people are starting their days. And so that's why I was like, I was really speechless for a moment, but I think it's so beautiful that you are crafting a world around you. And I feel like that's really a beautiful message to everyone out there listening. Because, you know, I know I have this really bad habit of like digging into my emails, getting stuck in.

Because I think as an entrepreneur, you can easily kind of be working all the time in your mind. because you always had stuck with it, you know, like, and stuck in a good way. Like, you're thinking about it all the time. So you have to really put clear boundaries in place. And I was just telling a friend like yesterday, I left my laptop at office, which I never ever do, but I had some things to do. And I got home and I was like, oh, what am I doing with myself now? And I actually ended up doing a watercolour painting, which I loved so.

And, you know, I'm a creative too. and I think that when you are, we all are, in my opinion, creative souls, but when you are inclined to be more artistic and creative, you actually do need to fill your cup. You do need to have wholesome routines. We all need that, you know. So thank you for being inspiration to all of us. That's so beautiful.

And how have you found, like, did you always know to do this? Or did someone? Oh, no. And I'm constantly adding different rituals and routines to the mix. I read a lot of sort of self-help and business books, and so I get a lot of inspiration from those. I will say I also have taken very lengthy breaks from social media, which has been hugely helpful for me, because it just clears so much space. Not only that hour of scrolling in the morning and the hour of scrolling at night that so many of us do, but even those interstitial moments of being in an elevator or sitting in a waiting room or being in a cab across a city.

You know, I try to be as present as I possibly can. And in those moments where I feel like I need to sort of fill the space, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I find that to be more invigorating than just like scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. But every once in a while I come back onto social media. So I appreciate it as well. But there I try to curate what I'm seeing. And of course, the algorithm shows you what you tell it, it wants, that you want to see. So you're really responsible for your own feed.

That is so true, you know, and I was thinking about that a lot recently because I do believe like our external reality is our direct reflection of our internal reality, I always say. And I feel like social media is actually like a mirror to us because the algorithm tells you what you're looking for, right? I mean, if you start with a rabbit hole, it's going to continue that rabbit hole. So in a way, it's kind of beautiful because it's telling you what your internal world is why it is. And so I feel like especially now in the world, the more we are, if you choose to be on social media, the more we are feeding ourselves with joyful, light things and inspirational content, the better for our external worlds too.

completely completely completely I absolutely agree I was just going to say I think when we're crafting our own work life I saw a quote the other day which was if it is your calling it will keep calling you and I think one of the things that's the most incredible about everything that's happening with AI right now I don't know if you're using a lot of AI but I'm using a lot of AI to offload responsibilities for myself that I don't really enjoy but are very important and very time sensitive and require rigor and responsibility and like good responsiveness. So I'm I'm offloading as many of those things as I can. And then I'm replacing that with things that I feel like have been calling me for a long time.

So I'm just about to launch a project that probably will be a substack with maybe an anchor in YouTube or Instagram video content that really will be all about gardening and then bringing the garden into the kitchen and cooking. And some behind the scenes on vineyard management and pairing wine and food, those things where, you know, I've been thinking for so long for two or three years about launching some. sort of content as a founder to give a little bit of the behind the scenes of what we do it in FEM, how we make our wine, how we think about it in the world. But it's always felt almost extracurricular. And I haven't made time or space for it. And it just kept calling me. And it was on my vision board two years ago. And it was on my New Year's vision board for this year. And at some point, I was redoing my, like, I do like a cork board with, you know, pictures and words. ideas and on the top of the stack was this one that just said what are you waiting for and I was like

literally what am I waiting for why have I not launched this and so I've decided I'm finally going to do it and I've scoped it all out and we're doing our first shoot on Friday with a photographer who I really love and I'm really excited to do it and I'm certain that it will have great benefit to the business but it will also feed me and help me to scratch a little bit. lot of those creative itches that I, you know, it takes up so much of my brain space anyway. It's like I might as well get it out into the world. So I'm very excited about it. I love that. I love that. I'm super excited to see that. Please do show. I'll send it to you once it's live. Yeah, so we can celebrate that with you. And my next question was going to be to you like,

what's next? You know, so you were kind of already answering that. And, you know, I think it's so important to, like we're talking about being a creative. If you don't let the flow go, then it becomes like swampy in your mind, you know? And so you have to just answer the calling. And for me, the follow your joy was a topic that came up while I was traveling and kind of finding myself again. And I kept feeling this nudge, like just if you don't know what you're doing in your life, like just follow your joy, follow that calling, follow your heart's desires, because in the end of the day, that's really where your body wants to go as a human, you know? That's what you're here for. So and we just, I mean, it's such a weird experience.

We might as well make the best of being here and just enjoying it between all the crazy. Oh yes, absolutely. On that, I want to say actually, you know, in this crazy experience of doing podcasting, a big, big thank you to our partners, RSS.com, who make it possible to do and have these conversations. They are our distributing partner in the world. And they've given our audience an amazing discount. So reach out to us on socials if you want to put your podcast out there. And then also actually on the topic of nutrition and all of that,

Blender Bombs, Bomb Company, also in the US, I found them while I was traveling there. And they are a partner of ours and they've given our audience a very generous 20% discount when you order with the fields. And very, very lastly, our newest partner and many more to come, B&E Sim, which is a best network ever sim. I used them a lot while I was traveling. And it's incredibly cheap data. Thanks guys for making it really helpful as you travel.

And it's a really easy way to get a global sum around the world. So thank you so much to them. And Jen, I then want to do a little segment called The Gems. And this is like a moment of gratitude or something that you've learned in this week. And for me, it's been, gosh, maybe it was something I was talking about earlier and alluding to. It's just like taking the space. You know, finding balance and not being like on, on, on

and then like having to be off, off, off. And really, like, retract from society. But just trying to find this balance and quiet solitude for me and slowing down has been really a big I find that it's like bringing me back to my like

childhood Nicole, which has been so wonderful. So that's been of a joy and yeah, a really wonderful kind of, was digging in my archives of like old photos and things as well. So it's been a really lovely like walk down memory lane in order to refresh for new. So that was mine. What's what's been for you? I think for me the thing that I've I'm most grateful for this week and then you know really in many weeks but it was a I had some good reminders today is I'm so grateful that my husband is such

a wonderful partner. He really shows up for me especially when we're, when things are challenging at work or when we're both really busy, he just really steps up and and does things that are very helpful, and I'm so grateful for it. So I try to do as best as I can to thank him and acknowledge that he's doing helpful things for me. We're hosting an event tonight at the house for one of our partners, and I have to do tremendous amount of cooking and menu prep for it and he like yesterday took the dog to get vaccinated and took the dog to daycare and you know just things that are like really truly helpful and

invaluable and so I think it's me not only feeling grateful to him but also recognizing that when I thank him it it means a lot to him that I notice so whether that is people we have in our lives who are our partners or people at work or our family or our friends, just really taking those moments to acknowledge and be grateful for the support that we get from our community and also fostering a community of people who are helpful and loving and caring for us. I love it. I love it. And it does sound like you guys have a wonderful relationship, which is super inspiring.

Yeah. And really, just for the rest of us that are still finding love out there, it's wonderful. yeah so um you'll find it you'll be a long time so it often does it does like again again so follow your joy to where it leads you and whether that might be a person place or space so that's really wonderful thank you for sharing that and speaking about people places and spaces i wanted to do a quick shout out to what we call our pps each week and that is uh someone or a place or space that has the fields and so this week goes to Quibis de Toy, which is someone I got to know really just through kind of us watching each other on

social media and realizing there's quite a resonance in our worlds of the things that we're doing. And we had a call recently and had a good giggle about all the things that we do that are quite similar in terms of building community and music. And he has built a school of wayfinding that is just so inspiring, taking people into nature, being more grounded, coaching and just also very, very much involved in music and very improvised music, which I think is a wonderful way to ground yourself and a wonderful way to express. And so I just want to give a shout-out to him. Love your feels and keep doing the amazing stuff that you're doing in the world. And then I just have one more question for you, Jane, and you actually were alluding to it

a little bit earlier, but that is what is in your stack? So the stack is our reading list. And that might be books that you've read that you wouldn't like to recommend, or maybe it's still wedding on the pile and yeah just anything that you feel would be great for our audience to read. I'll give two recommendations. So one is the best book I've read this year and the second is the book that I revisit time and time and time and time again when I'm in a moment of challenge or it's the new year and I need to reset or you know it's the spring equinox and I need to rethink the approach to the year. So the best book I've read this year so far is a book called Wild Dark Shore It's an incredible book.

It has, it's, it, I think it might be her debut. I'm not 100% sure of that. But it is a book that is set on Antarctica. And it's in a place where they are saving all of these seeds for, like, biodiversity in the case that the environment gets totally screwed up. And there is a real place like this in Norfolk. way, but in the book, it's fictional. And in the first page, a woman's body washes up on shore. And there are mystery elements to this book. You don't know who she is, why she has washed up on shore, if she's alive, if she's not. And then as the book unfolds, it's really about

environmentalism, it's about mystery, but it's also really about love. And especially maternal love and the importance of mothers and and just familial love in general. And it is the most incredible book. I've recommended it to so many people and everybody who I know who's read it, it's like, oh my God, this was one of the best books ever read. So really an extraordinary book and beautifully, beautifully written. And you learn a lot, especially if you Google all of the seeds and the animals that are down there. The book that I go back to again and again and again is called The Four Agreements. And it is about ancient wisdom of four things you should always remind yourself of as you're making decisions and just walking your path in life. And I think if you

follow those four agreements that you can make with yourself, you can create for yourself a lot of peace and it settles your mind a lot. So a really beautiful book. And a quick, easy read. You could probably read it in a day. Amazing. Those are great recommendations. Thank you so much. That first one is very intriguing me now. So I'm definitely going. It's so good. I'm definitely adding that to my stack. And for those who want to check it out, all the books I get recommended on the podcasts are on the website under the page called The Stack. And yeah, just to everyone listening out there, I wonder what you're feeling about the topic, about following your joy, what does joy look like to you in your life? And perhaps it is a bit of a mystery to be solved. But thank you so

much, Jen. Also, for coming and sharing your light spirit and joy with us today. It's really a privilege and just really so inspiring to me, especially as an entrepreneur, to see what you're doing in the world and how you're creating it and so intentionally, which is very much what we believe in with the fields. Well, thank you so much. Such a joy to be here. And, yeah, I really appreciate it. It's an important topic. We should all be thinking about it more. If you haven't just yet, follow Friday Fields on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn. You can share with us all your fields this week by tagging us at Friday Fields. and you can also find the website at that handle.

And now as you ease into this weekend, take a moment. Celebrate who you've become, what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do, the crazy and cool things that you do as the authentic you. You know, the truth about life and work is that it's hard. But the beauty is this global working experience that you're in, while we earn it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week. And of course, keep it raw and real.

Until next time.