EP #108- How To Take Ahold Of Your Skincare and Become Your Clearest Self with Danielle Gronich and Kayleigh Christina, Co-Founders of Clearstem Skincare

(gentle music) Education and team back in 12 year of health and understanding why and what's causing it is the most empowering feeling because then you can start to make steps. And so again, empowering and understanding your body and the way it works is gonna give you the confidence to be able to push forward and to start to play your acne and to see the light at the end of the tunnel. - Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness and daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stephon Apples, and as we move into the spring soon to be the summer, there's like an energy in the air. We all just wanna feel like our healthiest are happiest selves, and of course, exercise is important, nutrition, all that good stuff, but something that really can affect our confidence and our self-esteem is our skin. So this week on the podcast, I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Danielle Granick and Kaylee Christina, co-founders of Clearstem's skincare, a non-toxic anti-acni and anti-aging skincare line. That's amassed a really big following and received a lot of success. You may have seen Clearstem featured in Forbes, Refinery29, the Skinny Confidential podcast, and many others. And I am so thrilled that they came on to Everyday Endorphins this week to talk about how they started their company, how acne can impact your mental health, your wellbeing, tips for becoming your clearest self, wellness habits, all of that good stuff, and how to actually take a hold of your own skin journey, and become better educated for the types of products that best suit you. I am so excited for you guys to hear this episode, but before we dive in, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer, and follow along Everyday Endorphins on Instagram and TikTok to stay up to date on future episodes and podcast events. And if you liked what you heard, you're interested in trying out Clearstem and their products, go to their website and use the code Endorphins, all caps, to receive 15% off of your order. There's also a link in my Instagram bio where you can access all of this information, so definitely go check that out and happy listening. - Hi, Kaylee, hi Danielle. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. - Thanks for having us. I am so excited to talk about everything related to skincare entrepreneurship, mental health. I first want to start off with the founding story and how you two came in contact. So I'd love for you both to share with my listeners how the two of you've met and really when inspired the creation of Clearstem help. - Definitely, so I struggled with my skin for a very, very long time, like over a decade and did every medication you can think of multiple times even to vaccute and three times and it didn't even work on me. So I was 28 at the time and I wound up leaving the corporate world to dust off my bio hell and she backgrounds and go back to school and learn about skin for myself because if you go to a typical dermatologist or doctor appointment, they don't teach you anything. They just write prescription. So I felt like you could never get anywhere. So I went back to school. I became a clinical institution focusing only on acne and I started San Diego acne clinic about eight years ago and I met Kaylee here as a patient to struggling with something very similar and yeah, that's how we met. - When I met Danielle, I was, so I recently came off birth control and now we know we hear from so many women that have really bad adverse side effects when they get off the pills, specifically in other medications. And at the time though, there are no resources for this online. No one was sharing their stories. So I had gotten up for control and my skin just completely freaked out. I was already acne prone and this had just essentially like bored gasoline on the fire. Every single thing was making me break out but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know about pork hugging ingredients. I didn't know about the nuances with certain foods. And even though I had gone back to school and I actually got my degree in holistic nutrition but nowhere is the specific nuances of acne discussed. And we've had this conversation with all of our friends both in Western medicine practices but also Eastern medicine like functional doctors and there's a lot of very specific acne nuances that just are not talked about. And I was going to every single doctor, dermatologist, esotician and just kept getting prescriptions wrote to me. They kept telling me I had to go back on birth control. I had to go to antibiotics. I had to go and acutain but they couldn't tell me why and I kept searching like something is wrong. Like what is causing all this? Oh, I don't know. Just take this prescription, see if this works. Was the only answer I was given. And one last Google search, a pop San Diego acne clinic and that's where I met Danielle and my whole world was changed in that moment. When I learned everything about the actual root cause of acne and what triggers it, we discovered about 12 different acne triggers going on again from using products with pork loin ingredients in them to oversupplementation, causing hormonal imbalances to eating eggs every single day. 12 of these removed them all, got on a proper skin care routine and one of the key products in all of this was actually a serum that Danielle was developing at the time that is now our cell renew serum, fast forward and my skin was completely clear with no scar damage in a matter of two months and it's never actually bad again. Wow. So it's interesting that you talk about these different acne triggers because I think when we commonly think about acne, it's like, oh, you're going through puberty, your body's changing. Let's talk specifically for women, for example. And then when you're an adult, a young adult, like your skin should clear up, you kind of transition out of that experience of having more acne and puberty. But clearly that's not the case. I feel like you mentioned Kayleigh, there's so many nuances around acne. Does this tie into the concept of holistic skin care? And if so, can you talk a little bit more about what that concept is and really what the approach of holistic skin care looks like? Yeah, so holistic just means you're looking at things from the whole perspective and not trying to change everything by say, like, a medication. Right, means you're looking at the whole package and with skin, that is so important because your skin's your largest organ, it's internally affected by what's going on inside your systems. And then also it's also affected externally by what you're putting on and your climate and allergens and things like that. So you really have to look at skin from a holistic perspective, otherwise you will never get anywhere. So what we do is extremely holistic. Like our, and I say that because our first product, if you will, is education. We're educating people on what they eat and how that affects their skin, inflammation, how that affects their skin. There's something going on with their digestion, what that's going to look like. So it really is just teaching people about their bodies in a way that their traditional medical professionals just have never taught them. So that is our, like, the core crux of our line. And I think that's why people gravitate to us is because we teach before we sell. And then the holistic part of that too is that we have a vitamin that helps with all those processes that, if they're off, can affect your skin. So it's like, yes, there's topical skin care products that do specific, wonderful things. But then there's also the vitamin counterpart that helps balance out the internal side of things. And then helping people identify what their unique triggers are is really important to us. And it's what we spend a lot of time educating on. - Yeah, I love that you kind of broke it down that way. And Kaylee earlier, you were mentioning how you, we're on risk control and you got off risk control. And I've also had kind of a similar experience where I was on risk control and then I went off. And I was a little nervous 'cause I was like, is this gonna impact my skin? And luckily, I think my skin actually was pretty okay, but you would think that perhaps like your skin would be worse after going off-birth control. So how can you identify like what those different triggers are and how they impact your own skin? Because I know for example, sugar or lots of added sugar is really inflammatory toward bodies. And that can directly contribute perhaps to our skin. But can you speak a little bit more to the different types of triggers or things that people can kind of be on the look out for when they're trying to determine like what actually is impacting their skin and what's like the cleanest way to take care of themselves? - Yeah, broken controls really specific to people. And there's great resources out there. If anyone is listening that would like to get off and support their body in a way, 'cause we do have a lot of people that come to us that want to get off it and very fearful that they're gonna break out. 'Cause a lot of people were originally put on it back in their teenage years for acne. So luckily, there's a lot of great resources out there for helping to support your body for that. But in general, if someone is more on the acne prone side, there are guaranteed acne trures that are gonna break people out. And we'll get to the internal causes, but it's really important to reference the most important external cause of acne and that is poor phlegian gradients. And the reason why I wanna start with this is because it doesn't matter how many internal things you're doing fixing all your gut health, your digestion, everything. If you're still using products that have poor phlegian gradients, no matter what, you're still going to be breaking out. So because of this, we created an amazing project. resource on our website. It's the 4-Clocking Ingredients list and it has everything listed out but we also created a search bar so you can just search all your current skincare makeup and then hair conditioner is when you want to search as well. You just Google your product, go to the ingredient deck, pop it, paste it into our ingredients checker bar, click search and if there's any 4-Clocking ingredients they'll show up red and then you can also double check below which ones those are. Those are going to be the culprits of your acne for external causes of acne. Again, we're doing all the things internally but if you have a moisturizer it has 4-Clocking Ingredients, you're still clogging your pores and you're still getting acne from that. So that is the very first thing to check. Go through all your products. Again, biggest culprits, you need to check all your products but biggest ones are moisturizers, SPF, hair conditioners, foundations, bronzers, cream based and again it's 4-Clocking Ingredients, it's thicker than your skin's natural oil. It goes into the pork, it's stuck and it physically has to be exfoliated and extracted out so thinking thicker items but you'd be surprised whether some sepia 4-Clocking Ingredients in face washes now. You can conditioners, like you wouldn't think that conditioners could contribute to your acne. How does that work? Well it's so thick. Just think about what a conditioners meant to do. It's meant to coat your hair really thick and create this coating on top. And then when that gets, no near in the shower, that not only gets down your neck and back when you're rinsing your hair. So if anyone has neck acne or back acne, that's a huge contributor but also if your breakouts are heavier on your sleep side and it does it even if you sleep with your hair up in a bun, it's still getting on the pillow and then your face is on the pillow in the middle of the night. So one big thing to look out for as far as pillow because it's it's a pretty big marketing scheme that's like oh you have to change your pillow case every single night in this anti-acne pillow case and in reality it's either a hair condition on your pillow case or fabric softener. So we stay steer clear of fabric softener is for our acne community. The pods that have the mixture of the liquid fabric softener and it as well those are huge acne acrobators. So when it comes to your pillow you do not need to buy a $200 pillow case and wash it every single night. We do always recommend silk dinyana just because it's it's a lot gentler for your skin in your hair and causes less breakage. It's more hydrating like it doesn't pull the hydration from your skin as much but it doesn't need to be a $200 pillow case. Right. So these are external factors. What about these internal factors that can contribute to our acne? So you had mentioned gut health. Let's start there maybe. Yes we like to break up that health into two different sections. There's digestion and gut health and sometimes they're used to interchangeably and yes they both affect each other but digestion. Think of it as happening inside your stomach and gut health is your microbiome. So people don't digest their food all that well a lot of the times especially if they're eating really quickly which most of us do or we're eating like a ton of meat in one sitting or a lot of meat late at night. So there's just a lot of ways that people aren't breaking down all their food and in fact at San Diego Archipeleneck when I have a client that has something going on internally and it's in the mouth for blood work. Digestion like literally in the stomach like with bile, stomach acid and enzymes is usually the culprit. So we like to educate people that those two things should be paid attention to separately and if people are not digesting food very well it kind of creates a toxic byproduct that can affect their lymphatic system and that can show up in the face and the neck and it'll almost like highways or like pathways of inflammation. It's like it'll be like you know one inch section is just super retinum-flamed and then right above and below it it's fine and that's usually lymphatic usually tied to something in the digestive process. Now people have done a ton of antibiotics or a ton of medication or they help like say like parasite or something like that in their actual gut microbiome. There's a different test you can do like the GI map and other things you can do a kind of test for that as well. So we like to prevent all those resources for people and just you know try to help them pinpoint what area needs the most support. Yeah that's fascinating because I've done a lot of research and just through my interviews and personal interest and they got microbiome and how it got actually produces a lot of serotonin in our bodies and so like I think it's the vagus nerve where directly like there's that pathway between our gut and our brain and so clearly like there's this relationship between the food that we consume and then our mental health and our well-being and that's also pretty related to stress but then when I think about acne and certain acne triggers I also think about how stress plays a really big role in acne coming up you know on my face are just experiencing you know a breakout so would you say that stress is related to the gut microbiome which then in turn can affect our acne or is stress something to be thought about like entirely separate as its own specific type of trigger. Yeah back to the holistic look of everything our body is all connected and so we can't look at these things as completely separate and it entities are all connected so for example stress creates inflammation in the body it also shuts off off our digestive system so we're really stressed we're not digesting properly which in turn can cause an imbalance in good and bad gut bacteria and so it's all linked and acne is an inflammatory condition so when we are stuck in this constant stress state when we're shutting down digestion when we're keeping cortisol levels really high which means we're not breaking down sugar properly and our you know glycine profile in our body is really really high it's all interconnected so stress is heavily linked to acne it's not always the number one root cause but it's essentially like again pouring gasoline on a fire is adding to it in every single way usually there's some additional root causes we've discussed before called ingredients there's over supplementation there are certain foods but then all of this in turn is causing stress on the body which is making it worse I love how you just also brought it back to this concept of holistic skincare because it's so important to be cognizant of the fact how there's so many things that do factor into like our overall sense of well-being I want to go back a little bit to Kaylee how you mentioned that you had battled with cystic acne and Danielle you would also have been on acutane three times such as a pretty powerful drug I've never been on acutane but I've had friends on acutane clearly adult acne can really impact our confidence and our self-esteem so I'd love for the both of you to describe and maybe let's start with you Kaylee first can you talk a little bit about you know your experience battling cystic acne and how that impacted your confidence levels at the time my cystic acne really came out of the blue for me again I got rough with control and a few months later my entire skin had a rough did and was covered in a matter of two months I dealt with acne on and off growing up but it was not with the aggressive cystic kind and I hit my confidence a lot like going into high school is struggling with pretty bad acne written prescriptions I dried the crap out of my face I think just dried it all up but again in my mid 20s when I had the really bad cystic acne I was working a job where I was traveling a lot and I was very client-facing so it was constant like meetings during the day dinners at night and I remember packing on the thick clay theater makeup I remember looking up the makeup that the Miss America pageant girls were wearing because it's it's like layering a new face on top of you so I had that really thick clay makeup on top and you could see like all the bumps underneath you and cystic acne you can feel it and so because you can feel it you can't pretend like it's not there your mindset wise and I just remember being thinking everyone was staring at it and feeling like I'd really low confidence which was not like me and I you know I enjoy being around people and feeling like I was I was cancelling things I did not see friends for a few months I said no to hanging out with friends and going out to dinners unless it was work related and then I was forced to but other than that I was just in my house trying to figure it out I was testing all these things from the cleanest of clean till like really harsh creams everything on my skin every diet possible and I just felt so exhausted and because at this time on social media people weren't like now we have a ton of accounts sharing about acne in their journey but it wasn't happening on social media at the time and so I just felt really alone and everything and every dermatologist I went to I remember searching for so many that that specialized in acne and I couldn't find anyone and every doctor I went to just made me feel like I was crazy and I went through a small identity crisis you know my I looked in the mirror and my my face looked so disfigured that it didn't look like me and it was it was a really really challenging time for me mentally I mean I can only imagine how difficult that must have been also when you were working and like having to be around clients I know in my own experience like if I don't feel like I've been in like my normal exercise routine or if I am breaking out but I have to do dinners with clients or have social commitments with friends like I definitely don't feel like I'm bringing really like putting my best foot forward. And luckily I haven't had as challenging of an experience as new have from the past. So I can only imagine how difficult that is, but I can definitely resonate with this feeling of like, kind of like being gassed by doctors or not being really heard and understood. I don't know, Danielle, do you wanna speak a little bit more to that if you've also shared in that experience? - Yeah, I do. And I wanna prep a sip by saying that it's not an attack on doctors or dermatologists. And it can feel that way because we've all kind of had the same experience. I mean, I know like as I was in college studying cellular biology, I would end immunology. I would come with like a list of questions and couldn't get answers to any of them. And it would be like, well, there's no white paper on that or there's the research is in conclusive. So there's just whatever. It was just a lot of like smoking mirrors and then a lot of just which prescription do you wanna try again? So that is, you know, it kind of is gaslighting, you know, a little bit especially if you know something is wrong with you. Like the last time I had a really bad breakout, it was because I was eating a lot of eggs and I didn't know the connection between eggs and acne back then. And I was having like three or four days like my sole source of protein. But eggs can actually be really inflammatory to the lymphatic system because the type of protein they have. So I literally had like swollen lymph nodes like all down my neck. Something was clearly not okay. And I was told by my germ that no, everything, and your blood work looks fine, you're fine. And I'm like, clearly I'm not like do you have eyes? And I think that's that's kind of what Kaylee went through too. And they told her to remove her lymph nodes like literally. They wanted a schedule surgery to remove my extremely small lymph nodes under my jaw. And then another client friend of ours, she was truly celiac and it was like debilitating. It was having a very strong effect on her immune system. And they wanted to like remove part of her colon or something like that. And then finally her, no, they wanted to remove all of it to the point where she needed a colostomy bag. And she's like 17. Her mother was like, absolutely not. We're going to look somewhere else, looked in a different area that I said. And it was an Eastern practitioner who understood diet. Said it kept weed out for a little while. See if that helps. And like that was the thing that was causing all of this for her. So a lot of people feel like they are misled or gaslit through our medical system. But it is because of our medical system, not the individual providers. We're in a prescription-based medical sickness care system, if you will. And you have to just follow the money on that. And it sounds really pessimistic, but it's not pharmaceutical companies run all of it. Your doctor can't even run experimental tests to see if something might be wrong unless something is already wrong. They get penalized for running additional tests like that. So they're really handcuffed. And that's part of why a lot of doctors actually are leaving. Like we're going to have a shortage. She's too. So that is very much a thing. But that's why we always recommend traditional Chinese medicine and functional medicine doctors and people that specialize in a macro holistic view of everything. Because that's where-- that's the only place you're going to get progress. Right. Really the intersection between some of that West medicine foundational principles that can be guiding. And also you can't discount the fact of Eastern medicine. And traditional Chinese medicine and kind of seeing how the two can be really synergistic to meet the patient where they're at. I also-- I think that specifically health struggles at large, but Acme, it's something that you can see. So some chronic illnesses are invisible and are silent. And people can be struggling with it, but no one can really know. But when you think about Acme, that's very visible. And it can feel kind of powerless. Like Kaley would mention, you were like, I don't even recognize my face in the mirror. So what advice would-- the both of you have for people who are struggling or have been in a similar position to feel like they can take greater control of their acne journey and their path towards having clear, better skin? What are some things they can do to just feel a bit more empowered into the small choices that they make? So this is the reason why Danielle and I really like to go on podcasts and educate and why this entire podcast, we have not talked about a singular one of our products that we sell. We focus on the education. And we lead with education always, because that's what's going to empower you. I remember the most debilitating part of my acne journey was feeling so confused, trying everything, nothing working, and not being able to figure out what the actual root cause of my acne is. So it's why Danielle and I-- we have our skin quiz. We have our skincare learning center. When you go to our Instagram, YouTube, it's just all education about the root causes of acne. We've even built out a did you acne protocol that you can go through and it has all different modules. I've got help, digestion, products, inflammation, and you name it to identify your root cause of root causes. Usually there's a couple of them. And that is empowering, because once you realize that pretty much the root cause of acne is similar for everyone. If you're more prone to acne, then genetically, you're more prone. But we have things like eggs in the over-submutation and porcloggy ingredients that all comes back to the same root causes. It's just what-- it's just which one is affecting you at that time. An education and team back control of your health and understanding why and what's causing it is the most empowering feeling. Because then you can start to make steps. Like, OK, I know eggs are really acne triggering. I eat eggs every single day. I'm going to remove them for three to four weeks and watch the inflammation go down. OK, I know that over-submutation access vitamin D is very acne triggering because it simulates testosterone production. I am going to pair back to the creptoops, you know, the 150% of vitamin D. And none of this is the replaced any doctor recommendations of specific blood panel test for it. We're just generally speaking that a lot of people here in the media, oh, vitamin D or zinc are great for my immune system and then over-subplement on it. Without ever actually knowing, are they deficient in it? Are they taking 400% of the recommended daily value when you should really be taking around 150? And so again, empowering and understanding your body and the way it works is going to give you the confidence to be able to push forward and to start to clear acne and to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, I think a lot of it does come back to this education point and really with health and wellness at large. Something I've talked a little bit about on the podcast and other episodes is my perspective on how health and wellness is portrayed at large in the media. And I think there's still very much this one-sided picture around these steps that you need to do in your morning routine to fit into this perfect picture of health and wellness. But it's really not that. And that can feel kind of like not super inclusive and overwhelming in a sense because it's like, well, if I don't achieve all of these different steps, then I'm not going to fit this perfect picture of what it means to be healthy and to lead a happy life. So, stop being said, I want to pivot a little bit and care more about your perspectives on health and wellness and how you see what it means to lead a healthy life. What that looks like for you. Yeah, it's a balance. You can look at a couple of different ways. You can look at our daily life and be like, yeah, we're micro-dosing poison every day. And that's also kind of accurate. Or you can say, okay, this is the environment I live in. I'm going to make the best choices I can. I'm going to control what I buy and what I keep in the house. But when you go out to dinner and you're in a group setting, are you going to be obsessing over the oils that they use? Like, you're not going to be able to enjoy your life and feel happy or balanced. If you become obsessed to the point where you can't enjoy anything or if it gives you more anxiety, then it's healthy. And some people are more prone to anxiety than others. And some people are just at a different stage in their health journey where they care more. They're depending on their starting point, say they just want to watch sugar. Like they know sugar is the thing that they have too much of. They're too much processed up, too much sugar. They were having frappuccinos every day in college and they kept up that habit. Maybe they're drinking a few nights a week and they're aware that that's the thing they're having the most of, so that's all they're focusing on right now. That's fantastic. That's great for them. That's all that's progress, right? Then the next level of that might be okay, going all organic or getting rid of toxic cleaning products. Something like that. Wherever your learning meets your ability to create change in your life in a non-stressable way is kind of how I like to look at it. There are some things I don't obsess over and other things that I'm very hard for about. So it's just finding what you feel matters most to your system and maybe getting in tune with your system is step one so that you can get a sense of what's bothering you the most. Like if you're someone who has eight candles burning all day long and you're just in a bed of toxic humes all day and you learn about that and you're like, "Whoa, that does sound like it's affecting me." I kind of do get weird headaches and have weird allergies symptoms. Maybe this is the thing that I need to work on right now and eliminate. It's very situational and I think it ties back to your awareness of what is affecting your body and then you making a significant amount of change in a certain area and then moving on versus trying to do everything all at once because then your head will spin and you will be miserable. - Yeah, you bring up a really interesting point about developing this inner awareness which I think is super, super hard for people because life is busy, we have other responsibilities, other priorities, we often don't take the time to actually take care of ourselves. What tips or pieces of work? of advice, do either of you have on learning how to develop that inner sense of awareness and learning how to recognize when something's impacting you, when something is negatively impacting you. Because I think it can be really hard to do a self audit on different things in your life that might be affecting you and just never really noticing it until you're like, "Oh, I'm suffering the consequences." Yeah, I think the number one thing that applies to everybody across the board is your sleep. Poor sleep is poor health for most people. Some people can survive in like four hours or six hours and they're fine. Most of us can't. Like, Kaleigh and I are really sensitive to sleep. And if you have a lot of sugar right before bed or a lot of wine right before bed or you don't prioritize your sleep, you go to bed at like different times throughout the night. And I'm like improving your sleep can be like a very important thing. And then aside from that, it's just like paying attention to how you feel. How do you feel if you miss your workout? How do you feel if you do get your workout in? How do you feel if you remember to hydrate all day? So it's just like starting with the basics and then seeing how you feel and then kind of just like keeping your journal helps for some people but other people can just kind of ask themselves, "How did I feel today?" Okay, I felt really good. What went well today? I'm just gonna make that their new normal. I think going back to what Danielle said about not only wellness madness but where to start, I think we're inundated with a lot of information. So you can listen to a podcast on how candles are toxic, how EMFs are toxic, how our waters toxic, how our food is toxic, how the air is toxic, how our cleaning products are toxic. The list can go on right? You can go down a rabbit hole and it can stimulate a lot of anxiety. So I think it's good to just have a few areas that you're focusing on and then let that just unfold because I promise you you're gonna start to get inspired to clean up other areas but it doesn't all have to happen right away or in the first year. Like, again, like Danielle said, focus on the sleep first and then think about the quality of the water you're drinking and then food because you can't go a few days without sleeping. You start to go insane. You just can't and then you can't go that long without drinking water. So think about water all day every day if that's filled with a bunch of talks and that's getting into your body, you can go longer without eating. So you kind of go like levels of priority and then once you just start to focus on cleaning up those areas and paying attention to them, you get inspired to focus on others without it being a source of anxiety. It's something that you get excited about. Like, okay, I've cleaned up these areas. Oh, now I'm excited to dive into like, what's the best non-toxic cleaning products and you get to have fun with it rather than it be again a sense of stress and anxiety around it. Yeah, I love that you mention that because those are pretty much the exact words that I've used to talk about really the ethos of everyday endorphins which is to get people excited about taking care of themselves. Not see it as a chore which as you mentioned is something that's anxiety inducing but rather to see it as something that they naturally gravitate toward and are like, oh, I actually want to investigate this because I want this to be a part of my routine, part of my life, I want this to feel me in a positive way. So I love the way that you frame that, Kayleigh and also what you mentioned Danielle. Aside from all the tips and tricks that you've offered around wellness and exploring what this holistic approach to acne looks like, you both have developed such a successful company, I want to talk a little bit more about the secrets to success and how you got there. I know that the two of you decided to go to co-founder couples therapy. First of all, I didn't even know that was a thing. Can you talk a little bit more about what co-founder couples therapy is, like what that looks like and how that impacted your working relationship and kind of developing your company? Yeah, so it's executive coaching but he's also a therapist and he specializes in the co-founder relationship and I heard about it through someone in my business group who also does the same thing for her co-founder as well because it's such a unique relationship and growing a business is extremely stressful and there's a lot that comes up that can be very triggering both individually and then, you know, just like different brains communicate differently. So it's, I think it's absolutely necessary and we started working with him a couple years ago and we keep him on retainer and we just left him and the staff gets to talk to him, you know, they help like one-on-ones about like their leadership development and then he gives us tools for like acknowledging each other and to just keep and maintain the joy and peace as the journey gets bigger and bigger. What are some of the biggest learnings that you've taken away from, you know, working with, I guess a business coach slash therapist slash both being in this co-founder couples there be if you will. Those learnings that have contributed to just kind of understanding what it means to work with someone in the entrepreneurial space, start a company together, navigate those challenges. I think two things, the first thing is understanding how different everyone is and I feel like people just forget this and you see it in the media and people fighting over things and arguing when in reality everyone grew up differently. Everyone's brain work differently. People are stressed about other things, really good at others, view situations differently. We're just all built so different and when you can understand the person you're in a relationship with and working with, I mean Danielle and I, you know, we've been doing this for six plus years and all day, every day and building a team and building a company and getting to understand how both of us work, like where are biggest stressors coming from, what's really triggering us, what empowers each of us, how do we need to be acknowledged or noticed in certain ways or supported in others. That leads to such a flourishing relationship and it took a while, you know, Danielle and I went to executive coaching therapy together and we learned this and things would come up and some sessions would be in tears and feel tension but at the end of every single one, Danielle and I really give each other the biggest hug because we just get to know each other more and understand each other more and then that helps us communicate in the best way to each other because no matter what, we're just having this conversation this morning, like we're building this company to make an impact but we're also building it in the way that we want, like we don't want to put our push ourselves to an extreme bandwidth where we're so stressed out and can't relax and spend time with friends or family members and give up our life at the same time we do want to build a really successful company and so constantly communicating and understanding where each of us is being pushed a little too far and knowing when to support each other or draw back a little bit or give more whatever it is just staying on the same page and supporting each other and in order to do that it does take over communication and that's what a lot of people just haven't learned yet is sometimes when you think you're communicating you're definitely not communicating enough and we've learned how to communicate with each other and certain team members. Right and I think that's also just generally a life skill even outside of the entrepreneurial space and something that I heard you I guess implicitly say is the importance of boundaries and earlier Danielle you were also talking about how sleep is like the number one thing for your health but as entrepreneurs I'm sure they were probably close to you know many sleep almost sleepless nights because you can tend to overwork yourself so how have you navigated like trying to instill those healthy boundaries so that you can take care of like the fundamental basic building blocks to your health. And for me it's just like saying no to stuff that have to qualify things like does this sound fun or does it sound productive and am I going to learn there. So like because we get invited to a million things our calendar could be completely full every night all weekend with stuff that sounds legitimately cool and could have potential and you might meet great people there and who knows what that could lead to etc etc so I've just gotten better about having nights where I don't make plans or like I block it off as like yoga self-care night and I don't touch it. Yeah so just managing time very carefully and then trying to just be around people that bring you up and that sounds kind of like basic but it's not because there's some relationships where it's just like do I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around this person. Kinda like does it feel easy to be like understood and feel calm around this person like yes it does or no it doesn't so just spending more time in the things that feel good and spending less time in the things that maybe like don't serve a higher purpose or just don't feel good and then prioritizing your whatever it takes to fill your cup up like prioritizing that over like going to a fun dinner. I mean I've worked on it too. Boundaries are the hardest thing to set when there are really fun things and how like Danielle said you never know what going to a certain dinner event or opportunities will open up and that's really hard for me to say no to things but then I'll have like a meltdown right before I have to cancel because they like physically don't have any energy left in me so I've been a lot better about looking at the calendar ahead of time and trying not to over book myself and trying to be like okay is this worth it and I'm really excited to do this. I've recently been doing a task. where my energy levels are right now, like when I go to this tonight right now, because most likely next Wednesday, like I might be really exhausted after a day of meetings and then to go to a dinner at 7 p.m. and be really on and good conversation. Like a lot of them don't have anything left in me at 7 p.m., 7 p.m., and it's enough to be super on. So I look at my schedule and I think, how many meetings do I have that day? Did I have a podcast I had a record that day? 'Cause these take a lot of energy too. So what was my energy, the energy exertion for that day and is this a smart move going to this event tonight or going to this dinner? And if I can't be there and be my best self, then I should not go. - You know, in the spirit of learning to say no more often, which is something I'm trying to implement into my life, 'cause I do notice how that actually in a way can energize me. I wanted to think that both of you for saying yes to do this interview, as we wrap up, it's been such a pleasure getting to have both of you on the podcast, really inspired by what you've built and really the ethos and what you're doing is really also education first, 'cause I do think that's super empowering and like widely applicable to anyone. I really loved everything that both of you had to share. As we wrap up, I have a final question for both of you and it's a question that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast. Obviously the name is Everyday Endorphins and the show is about finding things in life that bring you joy and happiness and really seeking out the Endorphin thrills in day to day living. With Abbie said, I'd love to know what brings the both of you Endorphins everyday. - Ooh, I really like walking and listening to podcasts. Learning brings me Endorphins. That's my favorite thing. And you can learn in a lot of different ways. You can, you know, there's like a book title that's interesting, but you don't have time to read the whole book. You can go get the synopsis of it on YouTube or someone's version of it on YouTube and get a couple bullet points and start remunading on those. Stacking things that make me feel good, especially in the morning, that gives me Endorphins. Like waking up, you have these like neuropeptide shots that we're into right now. I like doing that, like doing a bunch of electrolytes with hydrogen tablets, going for a workout in a walk, just stacking things that make you feel good. Like that gives me Endorphins. - I have a physical favorite and a mental favorite. My physical favorite, I love cold therapy. I have for years, it gives me rush mendorphins. I actually showered right before this podcast and I was a little cold and I was like, "Oh, I don't wanna turn it on freezing cold." But then I was like, "You know, Kaley, I'm gonna feel so good after." Gives me like this rush of happiness in Endorphins. Energy just to feel good and my body ends up warming up even more after. So I did it, I put it on the freezing cold and I breathed through it. It builds this resiliency and strength muscle in you. So I love doing cold therapy. And then also just a good conversation with like either one on one or a really small group of people. You know, there's nothing better than like going on a walk with a friend and just like talking and just, you know, feeling the positivity and getting to feel heard and hear what a friend is going through or working on. I get really filled out from that. I love both of your answers. I resonate with both of them and I've never heard someone actually break down this answer in like a physical and a mental component, which I think is super creative. And then I also wonder if this concept of like walking with friends was brought on from COVID honestly because a lot of people on the podcast have said that, like going for a walk, talking to my friends. And I wonder if that would be, you know, a outlet of an answer if this was pre-COVID. Just some food for thought. But regardless, it was really such a pleasure having both of you on the show. Where can my listeners follow along with both of you and also follow along with Clearstone and get themselves some products? - On Instagram, Danielle's is Danielle, the acne guru. Mine's is Kaylee Christina. And then you can follow Clearstone on all channels, Clearstone Skincare, that's Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and our website, clearstoneskincare.com. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure having the both of you on the show. - Thank you so much for having us. Love what you're doing. (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard, make sure to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer. You can also follow along the Everyday Endorphins Instagram account to stay up to date with episodes, future events, and all things related to mental health, well-being and happiness. Don't forget to keep spreading Endorphins and find things in life that bring you joy every day. Until next time. (upbeat music)