EP #120: The Nuances of Self-Care and the Wellness Industry with Austin Wiberg and Hannah Minardi, Co-Founders of Standard Self Care

[Music] 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 Stafnopoulos, and this week I am so thrilled to have Hannah Monardi and Austin Wyberg on the podcast. They're the co-founders of Standard Self Care, which is the leading Cosmaceutical Skincare line, designed to help you streamline and upgrade your daily ritual with clean, bioactive products that actually work and enhance your skin. And in this episode, Austin and Hannah talk a little bit about their own background, how they got into entrepreneurship, why they're fascinated by the wellness space, and what inspired them to start Standard Self Care. We also get into the science behind Cosmaceuticals, how they can transform your skin, and what the concept of self-care really means, how we can define it in a way that doesn't trivialize this idea of taking care of ourselves and doing things for our self-care. Austin and Hannah provide a really interesting perspective on how they see the wellness industry and what this concept of self-care means and is. So really excited to dive into this podcast. Before we get into the episode, reminder to like, rate, and review Everyday Endorphins on whichever listening platform you prefer. [Music] Hi, Hannah, hi, Austin. Thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. It's so great to have you here. We need to happen, yes. I want to start off by having the both of you share a bit more about your stories and how you both came together and co-founded Standard Self Care. So can you talk a little bit about your background and the wellness world? Maybe we'll start with you, Hannah, and then you can bring it to Austin, but would love to just hear a bit more about kind of both of your entry points into wellness and your passion for health and wellbeing. Okay, we'll all start with my personal background. So I have been a wellness fanatic and also have gotten the opportunity to be a part of a lot of fast-growing. Start up, so mostly in this CPG realm, which is into repackage goods and in the better-view products space. So being a part of all these teams from very early stages kind of got to see a lot of what works, a lot of what doesn't work, and a lot of good teams and a lot of bad teams. So I've had a lot of experience just with a broad range of startups that have just begun and some that are much larger. I got to consult with Nike also for a few years. So after having all of that kind of under my belt and also I still consult other brands as well. So I'm also very passionate about the better-view products space a few years ago. We started standard self-care and kind of all of us have that same foundation. So all of Austin kind of get more into these and kids' backgrounds, but I think that that's something that's the common ground with all of us is that we also have a third co-founder who is also personally very passionate about the better-view products space. He had invested a lot of better-view products, had his hands involved in different things, but wanted to start his own and be a part of his own brand and stay provoked about. So we had been a part of a lot of these amazing wellness brands, other three products that were making a really big difference in the market and people wanted to be able to start ours from the ground up. I think for us as standard, it's called standard self-care because we wanted to be a higher standard for all of your self-care tools and like I said, having seen a lot of these other products and how they launched and kind of what we wanted to take from them that was good and then also what we wanted to put our spin-on is that we really wanted to create a brand out of higher standards. So that meant for the performance that the products had, but also for the ingredients that and formulas that we created as well. So that was kind of the basic foundation for us starting this game to align, but also if you want to jump in in your first home back in. 100%. I started in the better view product space pretty similarly. Right out of college it was like actually in my senior year of college it was actually me taking part in a large juice startup. It's called Suda Juice and I have heard of it. It's kind of now. It's like in every single store there is I feel like, but got my feet kind of wet in the CPG space, the healthy space that way and it really showed you what health products were differentiating themselves for, right? You measure a healthy juice versus like Audball and things like that. They teach you that on the marketing side of the thing like really how to push the brand in a way that's different, right? And how much healthier is it, right? So that's kind of how I got my feet wet in it during that time and now we're actually in school together and two is working for another startup that was very similar and that's how we kind of I guess bonded came together and we're like, oh we're doing the same thing with pretty much the same people too because of the CPG healthy CPG space is pretty small. Like you normally go to the same events, you'll see the same people pretty consistently and on top of that we went to the same school. So I really got very ingrained in that. I did all the events. I've met a ton of people. It was amazing because you kind of see like-minded people consistently in the same space that are all concerned about their health, right? Now it's big but back then I feel like it was just kind of ramping up heavily. So it's like Whole Foods was getting extremely extremely popular. Now obviously it's household name. But in general I've been involved in entrepreneurship since then. I studied that in college and it came out with the idea that I was going to be creating businesses already and I needed a mentor or at least a new company to start that would teach me a lot. One thing that we learned in there that was interesting I would say while working for some of these healthier brands, healthier products was not everything is other teams. People can call themselves natural. There's not exactly a approved definition for natural and right from the jump I've always wanted to solve that problem. I've always wanted to be like the transparent type when it comes to health say hey this product is great. It's not like the most healthy thing you can have for you but it's a better option than going on drinking five-covereb goes day. Right? Or going on drinking five-month straight-ages day. There's a clean energy perspective to this. Right? So there's always like pros and cons of each product. I want to make that very clear. But our goal is actually to make one with pretty much all pros. Right? And that's where we end up starting standard. I mean our third co-founder we're very good friends at the time still are and we pretty much started with the list of things that we didn't want in those products. Right? I mean we wanted like the healthiest line you could possibly come up with at scale. Obviously the scalable component to any business. Right? And that's what we invited Hannah. We kind of were like okay we need a provider of what is good and what is bad. Right? And that's what Hannah is amazing at including a majority of her amazing branding skills too. So we knew that's what we were kind of missing. He was on the financial side. I'm more on like the digital and e-com side of things and technology side of things. We needed the final link as most people call it. Someone that could bring the heat when it came to branding and came to just knowledge of the overall space. So I think I just texted you and I was like hey is this not interesting to you? We're looking at this. We don't even know where I really want to start. We just know we don't want. Right? We need transparency. We want to have a great healthy brand and we want to provide all the products that people want and be transparent in the way that we market them. From there we did a lot of research. We realized that a lot of people had trouble forming kind of like a synopsis around what is a healthy clean skincare product. We also found out that obviously skin is your large organ of your body. So we were very intrigued with that. Hannah obviously has an intense skincare routine whereas us guys didn't at the time. I'll put it that way. So it was very interesting to learn about the idea of creating a healthy skincare brand and we went from research to there, came over with our list of nose, right? And then really worked with our formulators and our chemist to kind of come up with the healthiest and science back and performance driven skincare line that we call "Stan your self care today." Yeah, I love that. I have a lot of follow-up questions. I think in the first the place that I want to start is you know with both of your backgrounds and experience, I feel like the health brand side space is just very like oversaturated and it can feel like there's so much out there especially with news and media. I feel like every day we're constantly being told, do this one thing for our health and then the next day it's like we'll do the other thing. There's just all this contradictory news that we're constantly being fed. So from your perspectives, how do you stay grounded with like all of the stuff that's going on around us specifically in the health space? Like what advice would you have for people who are trying to navigate figuring out what the best product is for them or figuring out what the best brand is for them? As I think so much of our health needs to be guided back to like trusting our intuition and knowing what's right for us. Like I personally have a lot of thoughts on the health and wellness space at large and how it's communicated in media because health really is not a one-size-fits-all in my perspective. Like you have to find what works for you and so with your wide variety of experiences, what advice would both of you have for people trying to kind of tap back into their intuition and figure out what is exactly is the right regimen for me? What's the right routine? What are the things that I should be incorporating into my day-to-day that is an alignment with my health and wellness goals? I would say you kind of hit on it but I do think figuring out I'm being way more intuitive with your body is so essential. I am actually getting paid type early adopter kind of person. So I am a person that tries everything and I had always been that way since I was probably in sixth grade. I was trying every trend that has come along the way. I don't know how many years it's been since that. But I think what I learned the most I actually had a bit of an autoimmune dream that I went on and I think I had so many different doctors and specialists that will make do this to that UVN, UVS and I know intuitively. "Oh, and I did that. I have no energy." And I just kind of over time realized that you don't have to figure out what worked for my body. And I think that it's not exactly like a rulebook for life, for everyone to fall, but you have to figure out what you can do that makes you be able to perform in your daily life, like whatever your energy expenditure needs to be. So if you need to be able to make it through and eat plus our workday and you have a family, take your family and take your house, you have to figure out what you have to do to get that all done. So other than that, it's like sticking to a specific diet or figuring out what you need to take out of your diet or figuring out what self-careism will be needed to add. And then on a product note, I think you kind of found and standard in our product line on the notion of trying to simplify your routine. So we launched our three products. It's not a complete skincare set. You so probably need a regular cleanser, but at the same time, it's a very simplified routine. We wanted to make sure you didn't have to use 10 plus products, although sometimes I do. What I'm traveling or when I want a very quick routine, it's a generous simple steps that you can do and keep your skin and make your hormone health really in check because also our products, like Austin saying earlier, we wanted to make sure that they were very clean and that's not just for the sake of being able to call it a clean product. We really wanted it to be able to empower the rest of your life and a lot of the products that we use today, especially girls use so many products. And you might not realize the lot of your products can actually be affecting your hormones, which is super essential for how you're able to carry on with the rest of your life. If you're really low energy, you're dealing with crazy hormonal swings. A lot of that can contribute to the products that you apply topically. Yeah, that's such a good point. I feel like everything impacts our hormones at the end of the day. And even the things we don't feel, we're not super cognizant of, really there is that connection. And I wanna go back to something you said earlier, Austin, you made a comment how Hannah, at the time, had this very elaborate skincare routine and maybe you were some other guys didn't. Do you feel like there's a gender disparity in the skincare world also? When we think of self-care, I feel like it's very much this feminine, idea of taking care of ourselves, like, luxurrating. But really it's not. I wanna hear your perspective on this too. Kind of what that looks like or any thoughts on making this concept of skincare more accessible, but also not tied to needing to look a certain way either. Yeah, everyone needs self-care, right? So whether you're a man, woman, or anything in between, you need that feel-good feeling. And that's also why we started with skin too. It affects your confidence in a way that this eating might not, right? It affects how people look at you, how you feel about yourself, et cetera. We really wanted to help people on the confidence train 'cause I think that is like the start to, right? It's kind of like working out. If you hit one workout, which I'm a big fan of, I have to work out pretty much every single day. It helps you so much get to that next step and next day and maybe some motivation and self-confidence that you feel so good that you wanna do it again the next day, right? So that's why we love routines, right? Is because everyone needs a routine for that confidence and we really felt like there was, I would say in general, disparity, right? Most people and most guys will use a bar soap as their skin care routine versus like, there's so many products out there for women. I would say that it's getting better for sure. And that's one of the reasons we want to be like a big contributor of this is like, everyone deserves self-care, right? I think in general, men are maybe left out of the equation sometimes because we don't even put ourselves in the equation sometimes, right? I think it's huge if you ask like 10 of my friends, zero of them we're gonna have a skin care routine, right? But that's not necessarily on anyone but themselves, right? You have to look internally and really find a cause for yourself and if that cause and if you're really ingrained in like well-being, I think that's what you're find a lot of men that do have self-care routines, whether that's skin care or going to the gym. A lot of it's just different self-care routines too, right? Like, Anna will tell you that hers is 10 steps for the skin care, right? Versus mine is like a half-save the gym. And some of that overlaps, a lot of it overlaps with knowledge what research you do and even kind of going back to your last question. My biggest thing is like, do your research, right? On how it can affect your work, your home life and everything in between, it's all positive, right? If you're looking to really take yourself to the next level, whether that's entrepreneurship, just your daily job or I don't know how you care about your kids, anything really. Carrying for yourself is the first step because if you're not there, you can't do those things, right? You can't care for that process. So, you can care for yourself as huge in every single day life. I think one thing that's interesting to me that you brought up is like, holistically, you have to look at holistically, right? It's never good to get so, so ingrained in like, oh, I can't do this or I have to do this or I have to do this. I think that's not good for your mental health, right? It's a some extent. So, you have to really look at health holistically and say, hey, how can I do proper research, but also not listen to one person or one label, specifically, right within the marketing realm? 'Cause sometimes those people are not the person you should be listening to or there's differentiating opinions. You have to do what's best for yourself. Also, when we started the branding on our product line, we kind of put that into the foundation if we wanted both men and women to feel super confident if they grabbed one of the bottles or the jar and feel comfortable using it, honestly, 'cause I think Austin could probably speak to this too, more than me, but if it looks too feminine, you're instantly kind of gonna be deterred or think it's not for you, like, that is something that I remember hearing a lot earlier. I even with my brother, if you'd shop all the way, I'd listen to me if I'd go, that's for girls. You know, it instantly be in that bucket. And so, our product line is really actually designed from the beginning to do something that men could actually buy. Feel comfortable having as men skinned here or also if it's at their partner's house, they could feel comfortable using it. It's a very neutral product. - Yeah, I love that. I mean, something I was also kind of just thinking about is just obviously a skinned her line is very different from a podcast, but maybe like the approach is kind of similar. When I first started the show, I was thinking about, who do I wanna interview? What do I want the angle of the conversations to be? And when we think about wellness, maybe it's this fluffy concept, like health and wellness and well-being. But really, I wanted to make sure the interviews that I was doing, the types of people that I was gonna bring on, it was very diverse and well-rounded because wellness doesn't just exist in this little black box only meant for one type of person or one gender. Like it's really expansive and health and wellness and well-being permeates into all aspects of our lives. And so you can't really think about it as this like one separate thing because you know, to your point earlier Austin, it's like kind of the stomino effect, the way that you show up for yourself, it's gonna impact and influence a) your ability to follow through on those healthy practices. Like it builds confidence if you go to the gym consistently and if you exercise and likely if you're being really disciplined about that, you're gonna make healthier choices and then that'll affect likely your skin care and then how you look in your appearance and it's kind of like the cyclical thing. So I really like that you brought that up and it's kind of like this concept on, you know, they say on an airplane you gotta put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you can help someone else. So like how can you show up for yourself first and truly take care of yourself before you're able to extend that energy and take care of someone else. So I really think that's important to keep in mind as well. But going back more to really like the product line, something that I saw a lot on your website and on social media is like this concept of, correct me if I'm pronouncing this incorrectly. Cosmaceuticals was that the correct pronunciation? - Yeah. - Can you tell me more what cosmaceuticals are? How can they impact your skin? Like maybe we can talk a little bit more about like the science behind the product and really like the makeup of standard self-care. I'd say we like to start with the Y here 'cause the Y is huge on like Y where a cosmaceutical, right? And then we'll kind of go into the Y. You wanna take the Y? I'll take the Y? - Sure. - All right, so the Y behind that is when you look at, when you really went into our like depth of research, what we found from most consumers specifically when you kind of surveyed the land as they say, what we found is there's a lot of healthy products like there is healthy products out there that people felt good about using but they didn't provide the results they wanted, right? And then there was a lot of non-healthy products out there that provided the results they wanted but also had kind of like side effects, right? As we call it, right? It's almost like the world of medicine. It's exactly why you'll see cosmaceuticals. It's the formation of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals in one word. And the goal there is to pretty much provide clean results driven beauty, right? That is the key because you can have clean beauty and you can have results driven beauty, but to put those together is actually to do really difficult mission as we sound up the hard way. But I'll let Hannah jump in and talk about what exactly cause these difficult means and why it's so important to us. - Yeah, so how many to his point? So it's cosmetics, other pharmaceutical grades. So when applied, they actually have a clinical theft. So all of our products have been tested and have results that have been proven over clinical trials. So you know, you still get the anti-aging benefits that you're looking for. especially with skincare and especially we have a moisturizer in our eye cream that we're going to do within skin layers because they have the problems with the holes but then they have ingredients that you can build super confident in and two awesome points. Like if you're using a really clean product we've all done this or use like a clean deodorant or a clean toothpaste and if it doesn't work you go back to your tried and true. So our whole thesis was let's make products and let's not launch them until they're perfect. Let's make them that you don't want to go back to any other product after using them. This is our higher standard. We want you to use this product and then this is your new holy grail and not have to feel like you're compromising because it's a cleaning product. That's the essential thing. The biggest example we like to use specifically in the health realm and CBG realm is like this deodorant and mostly because there's a lot of heavy metals in your average deodorant like the doves. Not a brand shame here but there is the just the fact right. So if you have like heavy metals like aluminum in your deodorant that's what it actually normally clogs your pores and helps you not sweat right. So like that's the effect that you're really looking for right at the end of the day is if you don't sweat you don't smell etc. A lot of the heavy metal freebie deodorants take a little longer to get the get used to and they don't really suppress you sweating and therefore they don't suppress the smell right. So it's kind of like if you were to go from a dove to I don't know some other healthy deodorant that's aluminum free and you realize that like hey I'm just sweating more this isn't really doing anything it's not solving the problem that I actually had you're going to go back to the dove right but at the same time you know the dove has other things in it they may not be the greatest for your body in general when they're ingested for your skin right. So it's always kind of that perfect balance of like we need both we need to be clean and not have any side effects and also effective and I think the third thing that we haven't really touched on is just pure efficacy right that has a lot to do with the results driven perspective that we take because if it's not efficacious it's just going to be there right that's how we look at it we really really pushed hard on the efficacy scale to say hey like if we're going to use these ingredients they need to it needs to come in proper percentages and components into where we really like see that clinical effect versus like you can make a healthy product that has little to no efficacy right and it won't really do much for you. Yeah and I think to like that when we were formulating we had finished the products and then COVID started. So we actually took the opportunity instead of rushing and trying to launch right when COVID started we thought okay the world is paused let's go back to the drawing board actually and we kind of took our foremost back to the drawing board and make sure they went down that checklist of is it a really clean formula and will all people using it notice a difference and so we completely re-drew the whole formulation of our eye cream for example we did that multiple times until you could actually notice a difference because especially for myself I knew when I use an eye cream if I didn't notice a difference I would maybe some nights not apply it or I kind of forget about it or have like a full eye cream for aviard basically that I just had all these eye creams I never used because I couldn't help they working or not and so we really wanted to make sure that our eye creams and all of our products are ones that used and you can notice a difference. Yeah so when you're talking about the list of nose this is kind of what we mean I'll go through it's vegan non toxic non GMO no silicones the artificial fragrances no fillers no synthetic chemicals no artificial colors carbon-free cruelty-free and we're third party ISO accredited for lab testing for it against heavy metal or molds right you'll see a lot of those in pairs and maybe like threes right but as far as we know we haven't found anything that's that dynamic and that intense when it comes to what we haven't put in our products so it really took us that two to three years of like finding everything that we could use versus what we couldn't use and launching something that we're actually truly proud of and that's what we'll play into our marketing too right we like to be as transparent as possible you can't be as transparent as possible if you are kind of hiding certain ingredients but put it that way totally I mean these are like so many challenges I feel like you both had to face when developing the product and really wanting I can like feel that sense of authenticity coming through even just how you're describing really the inception of standard self-care and you know I want to pivot a little bit and hear more about this entrepreneurial journey it's really hard to build something and to also want it to be of like the highest quality be the most transparent like really ambitious goals and covid clearly forced you to pivot and redirect and develop a new strategy so can you talk a little bit more about how the both of you have navigated some of those unforeseen challenges as entrepreneurs and maybe lessons that you learn from like the previous parts of your career and how you've taken those learnings and allowed yourselves to kind of bring that into this new phase of your careers and launching standard for me what was essential I think is that I wasn't a part of all successes and I also think also can talk to this too but not every company I was a part of was a success but I was a part of some very fast growing companies from a really early age the first start if I jumped in at 18 and was a part of it for its booming years and I grew exponentially quicker than all of us could have ever thought and it was really amazing products and was in basically every retailer in the country big grocery retailer basic uh in like 2014 through 2017 about and you were you were in college during that point so you were working for startup while in school that's a lot yeah my average seat was like three hours a night for the whole year it was wild but it was such a such an amazing opportunity and I think that ended up itself that company actually ended up dissolving it and even though it had so much early success and I think even though some people could look at that and it could be labeled a failure it was indiable for me especially at such a young age to be a part of that only second team of it and being able to see it from start to when we had to unfortunate close it but I wouldn't change any of that because I was able to then take that and every other company that had been a part of since kind of take the learnings of you know you ask so many different questions when a company is at that very pivotal point that a lot of companies don't ask until they're at that point and I think it helped me a lot in being able to identify things a lot earlier on and just kind of spot what the winners were a lot sooner and yeah I've gotten to be a part of a lot of other teams just through consulting on brands since that time and I think that has also been amazing I've been a part of large-large teams I've been a part of international teams and I think all of that kind of knowledge of different ways to lead teams different ways to build teams and what first hires that people made because definitely helped him to experience a lot. It's very similar honestly we actually kind of like worked at companies that were like kind of the brainchild of one another and that's huge a company with those of juice company I was working for them probably I think my last year of college they grew so fast within two years and it ended up something we'd call it within that time frame right so it was like really intense we were going to like three events a day while also having your pack schedule but what I realized very quickly is like I didn't really like school that much like working a lot better and I like creating things a lot better and it was much more fun right you make relationships too in that time like exactly like we just that's how we met right so it's just a different different category of happiness like as when you're working at the actual start of versus at school I'll put it that way but yeah and I kind of took the cake of that one it's all about failure honestly and I know a lot of people say that a lot of the times but not a lot of people actually have the guts to go out and fail to be honest like yeah you might have failed but maybe you didn't try hard enough I failed five times before I even had one success right but we've always tried our hardest to make it work and there is really no true true failure in business if as long as you learn something and apply it to your next project right again a lot of people sometimes have trouble with that they get really they don't they want to just discontinue their entrepreneurial journey because they got so down on themselves for failing once it's like the problem with that especially in today's world is actually a lack of self-care represented within the like social media realm of things right if you look at media right now it's all about oh this person did this and you see the next greatest person you see the next greatest person you see the next greatest one none of those people got there without zero failure like there's very few at the minimum and they probably had something going on and that's why their first was such a success right they came with something super blue ocean strategy which is just like brand new crazy no one had ever heard of it before right but in general if you're creating something and there's already a market for it and already competition and then you're gonna fail whether that's your marketing plan I don't know the people that you are you know it always comes down to how fast can you learn that's a great point like that resiliency the fear of failure is what often really holds us back whether or not you're not pretty we're just making bold choices in life right having the confidence in your decision making just the fear of rejection fear failure whatever it is if you learn to embrace failure rather than fear it and just recognize it's part of the process and also recognize that it's not a reflection of like who you are at the core either it probably makes it easier to keep going I mean it's something that I've also kind of struggled with is like not you know so closely identifying with the outcome of the things that I'm doing you know if I just learn to disattach or like de-identify myself a little bit there wouldn't really be that fear there it's a hard thing to kind of grapple with There's honestly a blessing and failing early. We got to feel early and I think that made it so maybe our risk tolerance is just a lot higher because we've seen what it's like to fail But it doesn't make people because you realize oh, I've already failed before and I've always already kind of leveled up from the area It's not the end of the world of something fails so you can keep creating and keep putting things out there without having that like moving over You like oh, but whatever I put it out there and it doesn't do well. That kind of goes away. Yeah We already have like 10 years in New York, but no, we have to think for that is because we started early right like you see a lot of people starting insane businesses at like 35 40 even 50 right because they're so experienced my thought process there was always like I started working on like 13 Whether that I knew it was like okay, I'm gonna create my own little business more months, right? So it's definitely gotten bigger and you fail even at that type of stuff when you're a kid to really make you realize like that's just your war Right, that's your daily war that you have to go after to create something the way you want it to but kind of going off that hand And I have an interesting round because our theories always kind of been like start on the digital side in the service promotion side And we ended up creating agencies first right so she has an agency I have an agency where if you're working on kind of combining those she works with a lot of other CPG founders Which helps her gain her knowledge from them right who already have a ton of data They can steer her in the right direction if things go wrong and same with mine Have been just as blessed. I think when you have the services to offer my digital marketing here is mostly in branding and PR things like that When you have those you connect with people who have kind of been along the same path but have had different experiences different failures Etc and you get to talk and you're like, oh that same thing happened to me like it's interesting Probably shouldn't you have again, right? So it's an interesting ideology behind Some people would probably call it crazy for so failing so many times still believe in it ourselves But just what it takes Well, you paint your own reality and at the end of the day if you want other people to buy into your idea You have to really have that full belief behind it right so And I think specifically in the founder space It's nice to kind of lean on other people who have been there and done that and get it like understand the mental battles that come with grappling with failure and keep putting one foot in front of the other and just coming back to that belief And you know a lot of the things that we're talking about deeply impact our well-being and our mental health And really are our happiness and this podcast every day in Dwarf and it's all about finding the joy is in daily living And the pursuit of happiness or rather like the pursuit of just seeking out those small and Dwarf and every day So one question that I want to ask the both of you is how do you define happiness? You know, how is your perception of happiness Been shaped throughout your lived experiences the course of your life and just your general interest and well-being To me honestly I'm not on a pursuit of happiness I think happiness is actually you know, it's definitely a choice But I think that happiness is an emotion. It's something that's leading So to me it's not always oh how can I be 100% happy all the time? It's more like how can I be balanced? No matter what comes at me And I think that's where kind of your routines and your daily self-care habits where they come to play because you have to have those things that you fall back on that can give you that consistency So that you know whether you feel happy or whether you feel down you have that equilibrium that keeps you there And then you know obviously the some things are going to make you more excited than others But being on a constant hunt for happiness I think you can kind of we do a stray also because it's just not always possible And you can't control how sometimes you may feel or our circumstances way out of your control So it's like have you heard of the concept of toxic positivity? Yes. Oh yeah. It's that idea exactly Like you're not going to be happy 100% of the time And if you were there'd be something deeply wrong, right? So it's really like managing your emotions Coming from a place of responding versus reacting So I really like that distinction that you make Hannah Austin Is there anything you would like to add about your definition of happiness How it's been shaped over the course of your life? Yeah, I'll speak to this just because we kind of talk about failure, right? So I'll talk a little bit about success here on the on a different side When I was like younger and going into college My biggest thing was like always kind of like Pleasing the people around me. I was a big giver. I still am like I try to have a big heart And I try and give people what they want But if you give too much like you'll push yourself in an interesting position I figured that out very soon too But I always wanted to kind of be the successor of my parents, right? So that was my happiness, because like pleasing my parents Mostly because they spent 18 years of their life driving me around The soccer practice says driving me down to LA And back to Sacramento for soccer games on the weekends Right? The sports kind of mentality and everyone And it was very competitive Everybody kind of just assumed I would go to the soccer route And then I realized there's just no money to do The honest like something clicked on my head after And I was after like winning a national championship Right? We were very successful at that But I always knew I had the leadership time And I kind of just realized it at the end of the day I didn't think I could be the successor that I wanted to be Or have that success that I wanted to If I really never took a step back and said hey Soccer's probably not going to be this for me I need to find something else At the time my parents were not too happy with that conversation that I had to have Right? But as soon as I kind of got in school They still were not happy And I tried after school and they still were not happy And then as soon as I find it like kind of like realized The exact way that I needed to do business and the what was going to make me successful Right? It seemed like I was happy because they were happy In reality that wasn't even the case Like they were always happy with me But that was just my version of happiness Because I wanted to please my parents because I knew That they had done so much for me That I couldn't let that go to waste Right? So I felt blessed enough to realize Hey, the people around me are counting on me And now I feel like I can kind of provide for my family The way that I think everybody should want to provide for their family But that's my happiness at the end of the day I love that I mean there are a few things that you shared first People pleasing I think a lot of us fall victim to that And recognize quickly that it's not the best thing to do all the time Like you're not actually putting your needs first In a way that you should be But you know it comes from this desire to keep an open heart and to want to give So those are all great things But how do you find that balance of having boundaries and doing what's best for yourself But also equally giving as well But I get that too I'm very close to my parents and so much of what I did growing up And even what I do now it's like I do want to make them happy And I want them to be proud of me But I've had to learn and recognize that Whatever I do at the end of the day Shouldn't be in the pursuit of making someone else happy Whatever I do they're going to be happy with As long as I am finding joy in myself And setting myself up for success however I define that So I totally get that And you know happiness is just such an interesting topic I think it's a concept that can just shift Throughout the course of our lives and our lived experiences I think that really kind of determines How we engage with the pursuit of happiness Or even if that's not what you want to call it Just like how do we lead fulfilling meaningful lives And something that I constantly come back to It's kind of like the lifeline the threat of everyday endorphins Is redirecting your attention to the things that bring you joy every day So it doesn't have to be like being happy all the time But like inevitably when you're in these moments of distress And you're kind of like not feeling super great about yourself Like what can I focus on that's going to make me feel 10% happier So given what I just mentioned The final question that I have for the both of you is a question that I ask every guest on the podcast What is something that brings you a bit of endorphins? A bit of joy every day I think some kind of movement routine for me is big But we can instantly change my mood and kind of do that Young mood booster, energy booster Whether that's workout, whether that's walking Whether that's I just as in Hawaii with my family And I got to do bunch of hula dancing with my grandma And I think yeah just some kind of movement It's really essential And then also something for your mind So whether that's a thing to a podcast Or big off your phone or reading And yeah, something that you can really reset your mind I was gonna say you, were you saying me so? No, I think this is part of the things can really affect the way you are Because you spend so much time with them, right? Like if you don't have a good business partner, chances are you're not gonna have a good business And it's one thing I really respect him and I've done well And we've known each other for like 10 years So I think it's always nice to have someone that motivates you And really takes that next step into kind of what I would consider fear/risk To start a business with you, right? But and then it pretty talked about not people that I would say the gym I have to have the gym If you don't kind of relieve the stress of the day Then you have to go to work to your best best benefit And I know that when I get in the zone at the gym, those endorphins are really pumping And I tell him all the time Like the gym and golf are two of the places that I just don't think I'll work it And see only two places because we have a lot going on And those are the only two things that I can just kind of like Oh, so focused on what we're doing here And the endorphins are flowing You're like trying to get better at the gym You're trying to get better at golf, right? And it's literally the only thing to take from mind off of it Yeah, movement is medicine, honestly So the famous L Woods quote exercise brings you endorphins and endorphins make you happy So yes, the gym working out any type of movement But also the quality of people around you, 100% You know, the strength of our relationships are one of the strongest predictors Who are well-being and our satisfaction in life So your answers are very odd on brand with many of the responses I hear, but also like there is science that supports this too. So, love what you had to share. Where can my listeners follow along with your journeys? Where can they connect with you? And where can they check out standard self-care? - Yeah, our standard handles are at standard self-care everywhere. Our own all platforms, but we are very active on Instagram and TikTok. So if you're looking for any spin care tips or TikTok is very active with all those skincare questions. And then our website is just at or just standard self-care.com. And we also have a code for all of you listening. So it's going to be in Dorfins 40 or 40% off your order. And yeah, we hope y'all get to try see there. - Fantastic. I will link all of this in the episode bio. So everyone who's listening, you can just go there to the note section. You can click the links I'm going to post. Definitely use the Endorphins 40 code for 40% off. Super excited to have a little affiliate code, which is going to be great. And just so grateful that the two of you were able to come onto the podcast and so happy that we got to have this conversation. So thank you again. - Thanks for having us. - Yeah, this is so nice. - Thank you very much. I appreciate it. (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) [BLANK_AUDIO]