Cori Sue Morris | Nourishing Your Body, Mind and Soul with Adaptogens From The Founder of Retreat Foods

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In this episode, Cori Sue Morris shares how a hormonal issue inspired her to create her delicious adaptogens-added nut butters and what her journey has been ever since. Listen in to learn the benefits of adaptogens and get some tips to navigate the struggles of starting a new business. I was sent samples of nut butters by Retreat Foods to try.

Key Takeaways From This Episode

  • What are adaptogens? How do they work?

  • Do nut butters with added adaptogens taste differently?

  • 5 relaxation tips to improve your sleep

  • Why you need a support system when starting a business

  • How to stay grounded in your mission despite rejections

Disclaimer: All information and views shared on the Live Greatly podcast & the Live greatly website are purely the opinions of the authors, and are not intended to provide medical advice or treatment recommendations. The contents of this podcast & website are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified health professional when you have any questions regarding your specific health, changes to diet and exercise, or any medical conditions.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

 

About Cori Sue Morris

Cori Sue Morris is the founder and CEO of Retreat Foods, the first company to make adaptogens accessible via better-for-you snacks. Retreat Foods mission is to help people reduce stress through healthy snacking. They take “food as medicine” a step further by adding a functional dose of healing herbs (adaptogens, including a variety of mushrooms) into nut butters. 

Connect with Cori Sue

 

About Vegamour

Vegamour is the sponsor for this podcast episode. Vegamour is a holistic approach to hair wellness that incorporates clinically tested plant-based ingredients that work in tandem to promote healthy, beautiful hair naturally, without using harmful chemicals or short-term ‘fixes’ that can lead to long-term problems. They study the power of nature through the lens of science to bring you the ultimate in total hair wellness & beauty for a lifetime of happiness.

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Kristel Bauer, the Founder of Live Greatly, is on a mission to help people thrive personally and professionally. She is a corporate wellness expert, Integrative Medicine Fellow, Keynote Speaker, TEDx speaker & Physician Assistant experienced in Integrative Psychiatry and Functional Medicine. 

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Episode Transcript

Cori (Teaser)

We talk a lot about wellness, healthy eating, eight hours of sleep, practicing a lot of deep breathing and meditation two to three times a day. But if there's not a spiritual component of sort of self care on your mind and your self. You're not really covering all the bases.

Kristel (Guest Introduction)

If you're interested in health and wellness.

And if you're interested in entrepreneurship, you're going to love today's episode with Cori Sue Morris. Cori Sue is the CEO and founder of retreat foods. So they've taken adaptogens, which are basically herbs or mushrooms that are supposed to help support your body during times of stress. And she's put those ingredients into some healthy snacks, particularly nut butters.

So they have some really cool flavors like balance and boost and focus and calm. And I just absolutely love this idea because personally adaptogens are some things that I use that I take that I've taken during times of stress. And also when it made sense, I would also recommend them to patients. Now always talk to your healthcare provider about things specific to you, but I'm really excited to share this with you so you can learn about adaptogens and also explore Cori Sue's journey with entrepreneurship.

Let's jump right into it and welcome Cori Sue to the show. 

Cori Sue, I'm super pumped to have you here today to talk about adaptogens being an entrepreneur and all this good stuff. So thank you so much for joining me. 

Cori:

Kristel, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you. 

Kristel:

Me too. Okay so to start, I would love for you to share a bit about your background and then your current baby retreat foods, because it's interesting like you, your background is interesting and how you've navigated now into this kind of healthy snacking world. So I would love for you just to share a little bit about yourself and your journey.

Cori:

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm very much as a scrappy entrepreneur, like many people I'm very in their thirties, I'm very into, into wellness, but I, this is my third business. So I come from a media background and I'm a classically trained journalists and I started a media company back when I was 22 and really got my entrepreneurial training wheels and was able to scale and grow that, it was a cheeky little food blog called Bitches who brunch.

And then after that, my second, I was running a marketing company that was supporting women led brands, primarily early stage startups and small businesses. And now I am pouring into food. My love has always been food. And I will tell you about the story behind retreats that I've just launched for treat foods three weeks into the business.

And it is the first snack company dedicated to fighting stress. So we're very much in the direct to consumer space and really passionate about helping people incorporate wellness into their day-to-day and eat healthy way. 

Kristel:

I love it. Okay. So how did you segue from your media company to starting retreat foods? where did you see a need for it in the market? Did you have personal experiences with adaptogens or stress? 

I just would love to hear a little bit about what led you down this new path. 

Cori:

Absolutely. Well, um, as, as you know, we're all pretty stressed out these days. My personal story was I was working at little company that just went public a few days ago called, called V work.

And I was very much living that in New York city life, working as a marketing leader, going into the office, working hard, playing hard, ending, you know, way too much time in front of a computer. And just, I woke up one day and I realized I was in sort of chronic pain and I'm pretty health-conscious, I exercise, I eat an anti-inflammatory diet.

I practice hot yoga and I couldn't get out of bed in the morning for a period of several months. And I thought, oh my gosh, 32 feels way worse than 30 now. Honestly, It was my hormones. My hormones were off and I went to a number of doctors and I couldn't figure out what was, what was wrong with me. And I turned of course, to functional medicine and incorporated a number of practices.

But most importantly, I started taking adaptogens consistently and over sort of six month period with consistent use my cortisol levels, which is your stress levels and your, my, um,testosterone and estrogen, they regulated. And I thought, wow, this is magical. This know I went down the rabbit hole as I do, and discovered sort of the magic of adaptogens and the benefits that they can have.

And I thought, why not make this more accessible to more people. Why aren't more people, you know, crazy about this, more people taking this on a, on a regular basis. So that's sort of where the idea came from. I really wanted to help people get access to data in an easy way. 

Kristel:

So that's an incredible story. You know, for people listening, they may not even know what adaptogens are.

And this is something that I learned about throughout my training and integrative medicine. And then when I was practicing and functional medicine, integrative psychiatry, we would use these things and it's, you know, there's different ways to describe my understanding is like, it can modulate your stress response and it, they kind of work with your body, um, to potentially raise certain things, potentially lower certain things. 

So it's really kind of like interesting idea of the, kind of like a personalized approach to supporting you with what you need in regards to stress and health. And I've taken. Gosh, ashwagandha. Holy Basil then all these different mushroom blends.

Those are kind of in my, in the cycle of like different things that I'll take. But I would love for like, what is your definition of an adaptogen and you know, how do you see people using them? 

Cori:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're absolutely right the way to help people understand the way I make it easy for people.

A great adaptogens are just an umbrella term for a category of herbs in the dissonant mushroom that are found in nature. They're non-toxic and they have a healing effect on the body. And the reason they're called adaptogens, it's actually twofold, right? They help your body adapt to stressors and they strengthen your body, particularly your immune system and your hormonal systems to deal with stressors, whether it's emotional, environmental, and then they also adapt exactly what you need, which is so fascinating, right?

Mushrooms are wild. So they will literally go into your body and adapt to what you need at the time to help restore your body's peak performance.

Kristel:

Okay. Yeah, that's really, really helpful. I mean, one thing I just want to point out for you listening is, you know, make sure that you do talk to your healthcare provider because I do know certain adaptogens, like they can have potential to interact with certain things in different conditions.

And obviously if you're nursing or pregnant and all that stuff. So it is still something that I would talk to your healthcare provider about before supplements and all of that stuff. But let's talk a little bit about snacking. Okay. So you have created these nut butters, which I am a huge fan of nut butters, and you've added, this is good stuff to it.

So like, how did this idea come about to add adaptogens to nut butters? Because I love it. I feel like it's just a great way to get those benefits and something I wouldn't have fought up. Like I currently will. I'll do mushroom coffee. So I've had it in my coffee and drinks. Like I see it in drinks, but I haven't seen it really in food.

Cori:

Yeah. So, I mean, I think we complicate things in the United States. We make wellness and health more difficult. We make eating healthy, more challenging. And I wait for treat. The goal is to make it easier for people to incorporate adaptogens into their day to day. And every two tablespoons, which is a serving has the functional dose adaptogens.

So I'm and our flavors are premise around the benefit, right? So our flavors are balanced, calm, focus, and boost. And I worked with an amazing woman herbalist to pull together these recipes and with retreat, right. Everybody has killed fatigue. Right? I wake up in the morning. I never take all of my supplements.

I put out the supplements and powders for a smoothie and I never get around to it. So I really wanted to make it easy for people who have pill fatigue, who don't want to go into the GMC or the wellness shop and pull through all of the supplements to incorporate adaptogens in an easy way. And then the other thing is, is a lot of them work better with, you know, high fat, high protein. 

So we obviously, many of us know that diet rich in healthy fats and proteins is often a pretty good way to go for your health. However, and reishi has all of these benefits, but when reishi is taken with sort of a high fat, high protein healthy diet, it can help with gut inflammation.

It can reduce the amount of harmful bacteria in your, in your gut and bloodstream, which can improve digestion. It can help with weight gain and things like that. So they're often best taken as many things digested with, you know, fats and proteins. So that was another reason there. 

Kristel:

Okay, awesome. Now I haven't tried them yet and I'm going to, I'm super excited to try them, but can you, do they taste different?

Like, can you taste the added adaptogens or mushrooms? Does it have a different flavor? 

Cori:

No. And that, and that was after 12 months of the development, it was really important to me, food products, right? You people want something that tastes good. And that's part of the premise that people are never going to buy it if it's, if it's just healthy, it's just like Allbirds that you don't buy them because they're sustainable. You buy them because they're comfortable and they look good and sustainability, is that a benefit? Same thing. The retreat act labors tastes amazing. And it was, it was challenging right now to have a non-toxic additive free products as filled with this functional dose of herbs that tastes great. 

They're sweetened with like date paste, which is got a great sweetness, but that doesn't spike your glycemic index. So that's the magic ingredient additionally, add beyond the mushrooms. And so I'm really, really proud of the product they worked with a woman recipe developer to help me out there. I am, I'm not a professional chef, so they wouldn't taste as good if I made. 

Kristel: 

That's awesome. Okay. So have you guys, your team and you, do you have places where they're going to be sold? Is this going to be more like a direct to consumer, like on your website or are you guys shopping around and grocery stores?

I don't know if shopping around is the right word. Are you going to grocery stores and telling them about it or kind of where are things at in that process? 

Cori:

Yes. So we're available online, direct to consumer@retreatfoods.com. And then we are in about a dozen grocery stores locally in Washington, DC.

Typically with consumer packaged goods, you take a market by market approach and you start at boutiques and independent grocery stores before you sort of tackle a whole food. Unfortunately, the way our food system is structured as there's a lot of marketing and ad dollars that go into what's on shelf in our grocery store, right?

What we see at a whole foods or a Kroger is, you know, 1% of the businesses out there. And it's usually the ones that have a lot of marketing dollars behind it baby consumer packaged goods company. So, um, you need to grow sustainably and then, and then tackle those larger grocery stores that kind of stuff.

Kristel:

Gotcha. Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about navigating this, the stress and the pressure of launching a business, because that's a big deal, you know, and it takes a lot of courage and really drive to be able to stay healthy and sustain yourself, amid all of the different ups and downs that come with launching a business.

So how are you making your health a priority? How are you navigating this? I would just love to hear a little bit about that. And plus you told me that you're planning a wedding, which is like a whole, another layer of stress on top of your business, on top of the pandemic. So what are you, what are you doing to help yourself during this time?

Cori:

Oh, man. I think one thing is, is it's how we're all wired, right? So I'm very much a builder and a connector. So I, I think I wouldn't have been satisfied if I wasn't working on, uh, on my own company. That particularly one that is purpose driven. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. And so that in itself is an energy driver, but I had a lot of, a lot of wellness practices I do. Not necessarily, not as a luxury. Right. Just as basic survival though. 

I think first and foremost. Which I'm sure you agree. I have to sleep eight hours or I don't really survive the day as well as, you know, nutrition. Very low carb. I don't want to be on that sort of glycaemic index roller coaster of ups and a crash.

So really healthy eating, eight hours of sleep. I've been practicing a lot of deep breathing and meditation two to three times a day to try to keep the sort of fight or flight stress out, nervous down so deep breathing, crazy how quickly you can bring yourself back into calm and focus. So that's the new one that I've added into my routine along with, and I'll tend to do a hour hot yoga at night before I go to bed to kind of calm me down.

I think when I was younger, It used to be able to go straight from the computer and crash on the pillow and 35 seconds or less than now. Um, those late nights, you really need a wind down time. So I'm trying to look after myself and then I try to sort of forgive myself when I'm not getting everything done.

I think that's a new one, right? We talk a lot about wellness, but if there's not a component of a spiritual component, a component of sort of self care and your mind and your soul, you're not really covering all the bases. So for me, I've been trying to be kinder to myself when I don't get everything done.

Kristel:

Right. That's so important. And especially if you're a high achiever and you're doing all these different things, you know, you have to recognize that you only have so many hours in the day and it's like delegating what takes priority. And one of the things that you talked about was the hot yoga practice before bed.

And you mentioned the importance of having eight hours of sleep, which I agree, like sleep is so incredibly important, but it can be challenging for people to get that quality sleep when they've got a lot going on in their lives or when, you know, you're launching a business and there's like all that activity from the day, if you're really like you have to be on all day.

So do you find that is the yoga then, like your practice of, if you do that, you finally can fall asleep more easily or is there anything else that you kind of add in there to try and sleep really well? 

Cori:

Um, yeah, I think your point we used to, you know, everyone is talking about sleep and finally it's no longer, oh, you can work all night and that's right.

The grind has gotten out of popularity and hustle culture. I think what's interesting is, is chemically right? When we're working so much, I will go through the sleep practices, but also wake up in the middle of the night because you know, my hormones are starting to get off again. Cause I'm, I'm experiencing a lot of stress and that affects your sleep quality.

So like to answer your question. So whether it's a hot bath with magnesium salts to relax, hot yoga.I have those, those cheesy, you know, wraps that you put in the microwave that you put around your neck. For me, I'm very cold natured. And so the act of sort of relaxing your body with some element of heat, particularly now that winter is coming, I find is really impactful.

And then of course they do take adaptogenic natural sleeping pills with ashwagandha and Hanson before bed. So my night routine includes meditation, hot yoga have asked if I can, if I can get the time in an ideal world, but some camomile tea and some verbal, uh, pills. I think I take sleep very seriously in this, in this household.

How about you? What do you do? 

Kristel:

Yeah, no, that's amazing. Okay. So. For me. Well, what I find is that if I am like really excited about stuff too, it's hard for me to settle down at night. And like, I just had a TEDx talk this week. And so I was, I, there was a lot of pressure there. I had to have everything memorized, you know, it was a lot like a filmed event.

And so it was for me, just the layer of pressure I was putting on myself and then I did it and it went really well. And I felt so good, but like that night I just couldn't calm my mind down. I was like, oh gosh, it's done. Okay. Woo. You know, but for those kinds of things, I find, I just have to be kind to myself and be like, this is okay.

Like this is going to pass, you know? And just, instead of getting all worked up about it, because if I get all worked up about it, like, oh no, I didn't sleep all tonight. I wonder if then maybe I won't sleep all tomorrow night. You know, it's more of like understanding for me, at least personally, a lot of it's situational and just kind of rolling with it.

But I tried taking, um, ashwagandha in the past at night and it actually kept me up, which is so interesting because for me it gives me more energy. And so I like taking it in the morning, but it's interesting how everybody's bodies kind of respond differently. I love like the smell of lavender. So like I also use heat and like hot bath and epsom salts.

I love, um, I take magnesium sometimes at bedtime, hot tea, but I find the biggest thing for me is just calming down my mind, you know, and just like having some time in between activities. So like nights I play paddle as well and like nights where I've just had a paddle match and I I'm up late for that. I get home.

And just like, I need that wind down time before I can really fall asleep, you know? 

Cori:

I'm the same way. I get excited about something with my business and I'm like a spinning top right? Yesterday. I onboarded two new retailers and I just had a great day of wins and I connected with some other female entrepreneurs.

And I was spinning with enthusiasm at about 11 o'clock at night. If I don't do that sort of routine and sounds almost like our routines are very similar on that. I'll never get to sleep.

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Kristel:

Yeah. And just like knowing yourself, everybody's, you're going to have, you know, certain things that, you know, work well for you and just be kind to yourself in the process.

And then, you know, obviously if you need more support, you can talk to your healthcare provider. There's different things out there. Like occasionally I'll take melatonin. If I find like I need a little extra something, but it's really, um, ideally, you know, you want to try and manage all this stuff with your self care practices, having a cool bedroom, dimming the lights, making sure you get early morning light exposure for to help that internal clack try and avoid like the stimulating stressful shows before bad, like no scary movies and all that stuff that's going to heighten your nervous system and make it hard to fall asleep. 

Cori:

Absolutely. And the other thing I started doing with you know, simple tactics for anyone. That's an entrepreneur, really passionate about what they do is I can have a pen and paper next to my bed so that when I'm waking up and, oh my gosh, I have that great idea.

I'm not turning on my phone and jotting it down. And it's sort of, I wake up and there's when I'm particularly excited and there's just scribbles across the page. Cause I'm writing it in the dark. But I find that that helps whether it's journaling, reading before bed. And then that, that notebook is a godsend because you never want to lose those ideas.

Kristel:

Right. So true. So I would love to hear a little bit more about any tips you have for entrepreneurs or for the listeners who are thinking maybe they have an idea that they want to try and see if they can turn into a business. Like, how did you. What I guess helped you get started. And how did you overcome the, the fear and the doubt and the, I guess just the fear of failing or the fear of it not working to actually take those steps to move forward with your idea?

Cori:

Yeah, absolutely. I think I definitely applied the, and I would encourage anyone if they have an idea, not just to run it by your friends and loved ones, because that's a biased opinion, but I, I took a data-driven approach and sort of a startup style approach to innovating around the idea. Right? So when I first got the idea, I tested it in focus groups and surveys on online.

And then as I was iterating the product, I did the same. So there are quite a lot of books and resources around a lean startup style approach to innovating and testing an idea because ultimately you had to make sure you have the right idea, and it's not about opinions. It's about getting rid of.

Targeted on your, who you think your target customer is and getting feedback on the concept itself as a product as you iterate. So I did a lot of iteration early on with the positioning of the business, with the value props, with the flavors. It was harder obviously at, during the pandemic. So digital and then, and then mailing product samples to people.

And then. You know, getting a support system. I think resilience is my superpower, so I will push something. And even if it's the wrong idea, so that's act, it was important to find the right one before I got started having a support network, I think there are a lot of business accelerators. I have an advisory board that I put together at all women millennials, friends and acquaintances, to help me with the business as a fuller, as a solo founder, it was really important to me to have that support network, right? Because if I'm in front of my computer for 12 hours a day, it feels very isolating. And it's important to be able to connect with people, solving problems on a specific thing, as well as now it's very exciting because I'm out there doing. And actually getting to watch people try the product though, making sure that I'm looking after myself, that I'm putting in the support system, the practices, you know, things like time blocking and things, various productivity hacks. So it's not easy.

Particularly during a pandemic break, there were a lot of supply chains. Delays, I'm sure you read about the Facebook drama of, you know, the internet populates, things like that. Digital marketing, there's a number of challenges facing small businesses. And I found that a community of other entrepreneurs is what gets me through that.

So it's ultimately back to creating the space for focusing on what's most important and then finding a community to support you along the way. 

Kristel:

That's so incredibly helpful. And I'm curious too, from a financial perspective, did you get investors? Did you have money saved up? Are you like, how does for people listening, if they're like, well, what about that piece? I mean, I know there's different directions that people can go. And when you have a, you're starting a new company, but how does you navigate that with retreat foods? 

Cori:

I can go on about that. So I am with retreat Sunday until it launched. So was important to me before I looked to raising capital to bring the product to market and consumer packaged goods is typically, they say it's, you know, less expensive certainly than opening up a brick and mortar, but it's not, it's not cheap.

I ultimately use savings. My fiance contributed and I with funneling my salary as a side hustle and into the business, I had to pay for products, you know, developments, the herbalist, the jars, the manufacturing, all of that. And now I am fundraising, which is challenging as a, as a woman, right? 2% of venture capital goes to women even though last year was the biggest year on sort of history for the DC.

Uh, we still get a very small fortune of that portion of that. And it's even less for founders of color, so not easy out there. Um, and it can be really daunting, right. I'll pitch people, 50 pitches in a week. Right. So it's hard, but that's normal. You believe in yourself and your idea and you get knocked down and jumped back up.

But, um, so, so now I'm, I am fundraising and if it's going, it's going okay.

Kristel:

Yeah, that's right. And I think that you, you know, you're owning that, you're like, this is, it's not supposed to be easy, you know? So it's, you, you mentioned that resiliency is your super power, so it sounds like you're in the right you're on the right path or like you've got this, so that that's incredible.

Cori:

I think we see some many female founders in the press once they're successful, right? Once they raised one to $10 million in venture capital, or once they've gone public for $400 million for them, it's all about this, this precious moment, obviously when, when the success comes, but there were grueling time before that, and there's a lot, a lot of rejection and I think there's nothing more rewarding. 

I'm sure you feel similarly than entrepreneurship, but I would never caution anyone, but I think you have to look at it with your eyes open and realize that you're going to sacrifice a lot, social life relationships, travel. If you are building. Yeah, something from the ground up, because it's going to take all of your time, probably all of your money and all of your effort for, you know, up to five years and you might still fail, right?

Because typically 99% of businesses fail. So not, not always rosy, but.

Kristel:

No, you know what you're being, you're being honest. And I really appreciate that. And so how do you deal with those rejections? Like how do you deal with the, um, the, the word rejection? I feel like it just has such a negative connotation. I, I feel like there's a better way to phrase this, you know, then how do you deal with the No’s, you know, and stay grounded in your mission and believing in yourself and like moving forward.

I think you probably have to just be really grounded in why you're doing what you're doing, but I would love to hear how you personally handle the No’s without it negatively impacting your self-esteem or your self-worth. 

Cori:

I think I try to focus solely on what I can control. So that's a very stoic element, right.

But I, if I gave a great pitch and I believe in my product and I still still is rejected, I, you know, what could I have done better? Ultimately it's about how I did and then how I can improve. And that's the only thing I can control. And that's the most important thing. Certainly it does get frustrating after, you know, several things that things you can't control, right.

There is inherent bias in the, in the VC system. There is, you know, access to capital. Like I said, it's a challenge, but I just focus on learning and growing and constantly optimizing. And yes, you know, yesterday I had a, I had a really hard day, but I got some really amazing feedback and I was honestly reflecting.

I've learned so much and I'm so much stronger than I was 18 months ago. How amazing is that I would have never learned so much about, about mushrooms or about capitalization tables and all the different things, you know, that come through running a business. And it's exciting. So I just try to focus on that.

It's not always easy, um, but I'm also really passionate about the mission, right? The product is amazing. And a lot of people help me get there. And a lot of people believe in me. And I think that's also just trying to focus on the optimistic side of things, right? The gratitude, the, what I can control, what I'm grateful for and who is really rooting for me, and then leaning back and connecting to those folks.

It doesn't hurt to call your mom or your best friend sometimes at the end of the long day.

Kristel:

I love it. Love it. Well, we are coming to the end here, so let's do a quick wellness lightning round. I'm gonna ask you a few questions, get your answers without you spending much time thinking about it, and then we're going to wrap it up.

But before I do that, any last things you want to share, Cori? 

Cori:

No, I think I'm good. I'm excited for lightning round. 

Kristel:

Woo. All right. Okay. First question that I have for you is if you were on a deserted desert island, what are three foods that you would bring with you? 

Cori:

Uh, we'll retreat because it's, you know, vegan gluten-free, dairy-free paleo passive protein and healthy fats.

And I can probably put it on all the bananas that I would have on a deserted island. I think a really good bowl of sucks. So I do, I do eat meat and I'm a big believer in eating for your, your body type and I'm very pulled nature. And so to sort of bone broth would be something I'd be craving even on a hot island then. Oh, man. Guilty pleasure, Sweet Loren's break and bake cookies. They're these amazing grain-free women led and CPG Brandon for cookies and my guilty pleasure when I'm, when I'm working late. Well, I guess there wouldn't be enough, but I know that. 

Kristel:

Okay. So the second question is what's a book you've read recently that you would recommend?

Cori:

Uh, centralism by Gregory Macallan. Have you been to McEwen? Have you read the book?

Kristel:

I haven't. No. 

Cori:

So it sort of reframe everything away from productivity and how to do more and rather how to prioritize only what is essential. It really talks about sort of the trade-off in choice and then how we, you know, need to reframe everything is not essential to start from scratch, take everything away and then add what really matters, whether that's, you know, business, he talks a lot about plating essential, and really that helping fuel your work and success as well as just how to make things more effortless through eliminating the nonessentials. And he's an amazing author. 

Kristel:

Love it. Okay. Last question, knowing what you know today, what advice would you have given to yourself from 10 years ago?

Cori:

Fail faster. I think we're also scared of failure and oftentimes we let other people, or, or life events make choices for us. And I think I'd rather have iterated quicker on earlier businesses and life decisions. So I think fail faster and, and go with your gut. Right? As women, we have intuition and every time I've ignored my gut it's hasn't, hasn't looked at whether that's in business, in love and moving to a new city.

So I think fail fast and go with your gut. 

Kristel:

Love it. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. This has been incredible. And thank you for taking the time to share all your insights today. 

Cori:

Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure.

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