EP #121: Eat Your Vitamins: Enhance Your Supplement Routine with GEM Bites featuring Sara Cullen, Founder and CEO of GEM

(gentle music) Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stelestephinopolis, and this week we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into food as a pillar for our wellbeing, for our happiness, and specifically looking at the supplement industry. So I'm really thrilled to have Sarah Cullen come onto the show this week. She is the founder and CEO of Gem, which is a delicious and nutrient dense bite for holistic foundational health. What I love about these gem bites is that they basically feel, like instead of taking a supplement or a pill, you're just having a snack that's super nutrient dense, and they're filled with whole food vitamins, minerals, prebiotics and probiotics. In this episode, Sarah talks about her entrepreneurial journey, what inspired her to start gem from her own personal health issues. We also talked about America's food system lacking biodiversity, why it's important to fill the gaps that do exist in our diet, and how the food industry in America really informed her approach to product design and how her team's going to create gem so that it really provides comprehensive whole nutrition. Sarah also talks a little bit about some of her fundamental building blocks to creating a healthy lifestyle. How stress plays a big role in our health and wellbeing in the way in which we absorb certain nutrients in our body. And lastly, of course, Sarah shares her own perspective on happiness, health, and what brings her a bit of endorphins every day. You can also try out your very own gem bite with the code EE30 for 30% off of your first month of gem. And if you liked what you heard, if you found this episode interesting or certain topics that we discussed really fascinating, shoot us a DM, reach out, love getting to hear from the community, and be sure to like, rate, and review this podcast wherever you listen to your episodes. Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today. - Hi, Stella. Thanks for having me. - I know you're currently in Venice, and I'm so jealous because I'd love to be in like sunny California right now, especially as we're recording this in daylight savings just hit. So it's getting dark so soon. Earlier, we were talking a little bit about just my own experience using gem and loving the product that you've built. And I was telling you how it feels like I'm starting my day with a snack, which is so fun, 'cause I feel like it's such a hassle to like pop in a multi-vitamin every morning or feel like you have to take a million different supplements and it exhausts me and it makes me stressed 'cause then I'm like, I feel like I can't actually do all of this in the morning. It's just too much to think about. So I just love how I pop a little gem. - Yeah. And it often makes you nauseous as well because you're swallowing these handful of pills on an empty stomach maybe, and there's just a lot going on there without the proper kind of co-factors and co-nutrames to help absorb and so. The GemBites fun, delightful. I'm glad you're enjoying. Very delightful. That's a great point also. I've had multi-vitamins on an empty stomach before and I remember like I took a new product for the first time a few months ago on an empty stomach and then I went out for a run and I was so nauseous on this run and I couldn't figure out what it was. I realized after, it was 'cause I had those vitamins on an empty stomach, it really did not jive with my system. So what I love about Gem is that it really settles the stomach which I think is super important. But I digress, this is my own personal experience which has been lovely. I wanna turn it over to you Sarah and hear more about your inspiration for starting Gem. Like where did the desire to start this company spin out of? - It really started with my own personal health journey. I've always been obsessed with all kinds of plants and experimentation, how we can democratize access to new applications of plants and we can get into that in my background. But the actual idea of Gem came from my own personal health journey. It was in my late 20s. I started experiencing weird sort of swelling and inflammation. I had a sluggish metabolism, hormonal imbalances and I started to do a series of doctor office visits. I did some blood tests and found out that I was food sensitive to corn, soy and wheat which by the way is in more than 70% of America's calories. It's even in all of our vitamins. I found out that I was also just nutrient deficient and it kind of shocked me because I thought I was a healthy person. I ate my salads and I got my vegetables. But ironically I've always been a vitamin skeptic. I believe that you should get your vitamins from whole food. But the reality was that I was nutrient deficient. And so at the time I turned to the vitamin aisle and I said, "Okay, let's fill the gaps in my diet. "I have a lot of gaps to fill." And I went to supplement aisle. There I was trying to weed out a lot of these inflammatory ingredients at the time, right? Corn, soy, wheat and animal, which by the way, were in all of our vitamin supplements. I was trying to weed out sugar, which is in all these sugary gummy bears. And so most of the supplements I couldn't actually take to fill the gaps in my diet. And that's what brought me to making these concoctions at home. I got really obsessed with nutrient dense seaweed and algae like spirulina. And I ultimately created this funny looking bite that's now jam. And it has more than 20 different superfoods all packed in there with the key vitamins and minerals that you need most. And it was something that really started helping me, obviously, back when I was having these experiences. And I didn't even think of it as a multivitamin. I really just thought of it as here is a bite with the most nutrient dense foods that you need the most. Kind of fill the gaps in your diet and get that daily nutrition. And ultimately, it blossomed into now. A totally new reinvented idea of what a vitamin is, what it looks like, what's inside of it, and what it does for you. Yeah, I love that. I really love your point also about how you felt like you were always healthy. So why were you experiencing these other health struggles? It's something I've also grappled with too, growing up, like very physically active, like typically a pretty healthy person, parents fed me well, never had that much sugar growing up, you know. Nothing was ever really restricted, but it wasn't like we always had sugary things lying around all the time. And I was on a rowing team in high school. I was very active. And all of a sudden, I start dealing with a lot of hormonal imbalance issues and issues with my cycle. And I thought to myself, well, I'm not unhealthy. Like why am I experiencing all these challenges? And I think this actually is something that many people and probably women in particular experience, like this paradox of like, well, I feel like I'm healthy, but technically I'm having these health issues. Where do you think a lot of that stems from? It's pretty tragic because our food system today is so start if it's nutrients. And the soil health, right? Like an apple today just isn't the same nutrient density as an apple 50 years ago. So even if you are trying to eat well-balanced and healthy, you're not getting as many nutrients. And so we do, I think, you know, there's a stat out there, like 90% of Americans are micronutrient deficient. We're just not getting the nutrients that we can from food anymore. It's really hard. You really have to be cognizant about it. And so you do need to fill the gaps in your diet, and that's why supplementation is important. And so, you know, that's the truth of where we are. And it's a sad reality of our kind of broken food system. But also, I feel like there's a lot of round diets and trends and fads in this sort of extreme view as well. That's like captured a lot of American minds in a negative way where people have also cut out the idea of a well-balanced diet altogether because they've been so extreme, perhaps, in some of their diets and riding on some of these trends. And so that's why I believe in more of a balanced holistic approach to trying to do the best that you can, but also being very cognizant about supplementing your diet because even, you know, we don't eat perfectly. We're not perfect humans. But even if you did eat perfectly, you would still need to do that. There is something to be said about, like, diversifying your diet and diversifying the types of food that you're eating. I think it makes for just a more interesting life if you're not eating the exact same thing every day. But it also, like, on a nutrient level, I think it's important to have different types of foods in your diet so that you're constantly getting different types of nutrients in your system. I love that you said that because that was part of my experience, right? I always food sensitive to corn, soy, and wheat, which is 70% of our calories in America come from just those three plants. So we inherently, just the way that our system is set up, it's lacks biodiversity. And you really need biodiversity in order to get a diverse amount of nutrients, the whole idea of eating the rainbow, right? That's what that idea comes from. And that's the philosophy behind jam. We put different foods in there. Our vitamins and mineral comes from a variety of different whole plant sources. And so you're getting those different biodiverse foods. And there's a lot of really cool science behind it that I can go into. The diversity, too, there's a huge correlation with your gut health, right? And probiotics and getting a diverse amount of bacteria. Like, all of that comes into this premise that food is medicine. And it really embodies that biodiverse philosophy. absolutely. And thinking about food as medicine, we also know that there's this gut brain connection, and that a lot of our serotonin is actually produced in our gut as well. And so there's that connection too. And I have the pleasure of having the daily gem bites every morning. So it's the citrus ginger one that I've been using. Can you talk a little bit more about that particular product, the composition of it, the different nutrients that the gem bites have, and how it's meant to kind of prepare you for your day and your daily nutrition? Yeah, great question. So we looked at your different average deficiencies, right? So a lot of us, we have all of your B vitamins in there, and a lot of us who are vegan or eat a more plant-based diet might need some of these B vitamins. Also, if you're really stressed out, you run through the B vitamins. So we have all of that. We have K2 as well, which comes from chickpeas and our K2 helps you absorb calcium. And so we have a lot of nutrients, you know, one of our philosophies in the gem bite is to have nutrients that work together synergistically to help with absorption. So that's one pillar. The second is to actually dress your average deficiencies in the things that you need most and don't make a dose on it. Because we do think that you should eat a well-bounded diet. We don't want to overload your body with too much. We want to give it exactly what it needs in the best high quality form possible. And so then we have things like turmeric, right? Which is an amazing ancient anti-inflammatory route. We carry that with black pepper. Again, that synergistic property for an order for it to help activate the bio, you know, its bioavailability. And then we have a lot of probiotics. We also have a lot of prebiotic fibers again to work with the probiotics to activate it. So we have things like beta-glugin, which has a lot of incredible clinical studies around helping with your immune health. We also have zinc, which is really important for your immune health. And vitamin D3, which comes from algae in our product, which is critical for mood, bone, immune as well. And so I mean, the list goes on. I could keep rattling on other things in this bite. But I just wanted to speak to a few nutrients of how we've like developed the products to really think about different parts of your body as well. But you know, the gut, the brain, how things work together. And we look at it holistically. We actually have multi-disciplinary scientific advisory board. It has a neurologist, a functional medicine doctor, an herbalist, a registered dietitian. And so we work with all of these doctors and scientists to really understand what is the best formulation. And how can we look at it from both an eastern western medical lens from an ancient modern and really try to combine all those perspectives into, you know, the quote unquote holistic sort of thesis that we have. I'm thinking about Judas medicine. Yeah, that's so great. I found personally when I approach my care from a holistic perspective, like bringing in some more of that eastern philosophy, but also having some support in the Western view and research, I actually feel like I'm in the most control of my health when I get both. Because I think Eastern medicine and philosophy can really supplement some of that, like traditional Western medicine and fill in the gaps as to where maybe the Western school of thought or research doesn't really address maybe the root cause or the root issue. And I found this to be super helpful, particularly also with hormonal health issues. Definitely. You know, a great example of that is in our sleep products, we don't use melatonin, right? So melatonin is more of a view of a modern view. Your body actually naturally produces that hormone melatonin and the more that you supplement, the actually the less that your body produces and so it can become habit forming in some ways. So we use an alternative herb that's been used for thousands of years, Valerian root, it's supernatural and it helps kind of produce that sleepy quality, but it's not habit forming and it's not messing with your own production of melatonin. And like so many of these herbs are new to maybe us in the West, but actually they've been really tried and true into tumeric or jinsing or Valerian root, ashwaganda, there's so many incredible examples of herbs that can really help balance out your hormones and an amazing amount of research behind it as well. And so it's really just about building those connections, connecting the dots as much as possible and that's what we're trying to do at gym and reaffirm that connection that you have with food and nourishment in a more holistic way. Yeah, seeing food as a source of nourishment I think is so important because I think when you adopt that mentality, it allows for a greater appreciation of what you're actually putting into your body and more intentionality with actually what you're going to consume rather than mindlessly grabbing for something that might feel good in the moment, but isn't actually contributing to your health, right? Exactly. And that's what we want the gem bite to represent as well, right? It's this delightful food bite. It's this moment that you take to yourself to really be cognizant, to be conscious and to think about that connection with food because it's important even outside of that bite. It's not just swallowing handful of pills and saying, okay, that's it. I did my work. Let's move on. It's important that you continue to have a well-balanced diet and there's one study that I love to talk about. It's in my favorite book called Whole, highly recommended by Dr. T. Cullen Campbell and it's a study that he talks about in there where they look at the antioxidant level activity of an apple and it's 263 times that of a vitamin C supplementation and so you know tip like they looked at so they basically they had an antioxidant vitamin C activity level of 1500 milligrams worth of vitamin C. So it's like you took three basically vitamin C supplements and that's what they were finding with this apple that had the same antioxidant level vitamin C activity. However, when they actually analyzed it, it only had like a minuscule of vitamin C 5.7 milligrams and so all that vitamin C activity, antioxidant level activity was coming from less than 1% of vitamin C in that whole apple. So what did it come from? It came from all these other phytonutrients and coenzymes and coenocaticans and other antioxidants and things that we might not see on a label that we might not think about, that we might not talk about. We might not even have names for but those are the important parts of whole food that you forget about and that's why it's important to to have a well-rounded diet and to really get close with your food and get intimate with it and get curious about it. I love that and it's easy to also lose sight of really the power of food and how it impacts our own mood, how it impacts our health kind of looking more within rather than thinking about how do I want to appear on the outside like really seeing food as a source of nourishment and something that I find really interesting is two people can eat the same exact diet but can of course look very different and also absorb the nutrients in a different way. And I don't know the answer to this but I'm curious if you've come across this in any research or if you know anything about this but I have a hunch that stress might be a really big factor actually that can dictate our ability to properly digest our food to properly extract nutrients. So I'd love if you could comment on that or if you've come across anything about how stress impacts like our ability to actually digest our food properly and absorb those nutrients so that we have a full and whole diet. It's such a good call out and it's this cycle right because the more your body is deprived of nutrients or in the state of imbalance the more stress that you are and the more stress that you are the more it deprives your body and that's why I mentioned vitamin Bs earlier actually most of us are chronically stressed and so we actually run through our B vitamins a lot quicker in our modern lifestyle demand. So stress is and it's something that's not that I think will continue to get more recent and is getting more research but we're still very far behind I feel same with our research around hormones right they're all interconnected so what's the stress hormone that we all talk about a lot is cortisol and cortisol is really interesting so when you get stressed out your body produces a lot of cortisol. Well, ashwaganda is one herb that we actually have in whenever other gen bites are cacao and lemongrass berry and ashwaganda is proven when you take it consistently at the right dosage for at least 30 days that it can reduce your cortisol levels by 20% so there are a lot of things that you can do in nutrients in ways you can nourish your body that can help with stress but also managing your stress outside of just nutrition is really important for that whole cycle to work and it's something where I've I feel like as I've gone through my entrepreneurial journey which is certainly stressful I've thought a lot more about stress as I've gotten older and had to manage that and from you know sleeping to mindful practices I definitely don't have it figured out I am far from perfect but it is something that is actually one of my number one kind of health goals right now is to manage my stress better. That's such a good segue because I wanted to ask you how you manage your stress levels as an entrepreneur you've had a very interesting entrepreneurial journey and prior to gem you started a plant-based beverage brand so can you speak a little bit about first what excites you about entrepreneurship and secondly how do you navigate the challenges that come with the job of being your own boss. I love building I love building with awesome humans that's what excites me about entrepreneurship that's what I love about what I do particularly to with my last company that was a plant-based beverage to now. It's about experimenting, being very curious about the world of all these different plants and how we can build new applications to pioneer new ways that we think about our health and change that narrative around nourishment. I love that stuff. That's what excites me about what I do about nutrition, about entrepreneurship. I also think to Kavi out this question, that is something that can actually fluctuate because it's not like we can think about stress as a standalone experience. There's going to be life circumstances that change, that make us shift our priorities and it just change the backdrop to which we're experiencing this stress. So how have you navigated those moments where things get more stressful that you can't necessarily anticipate and how do you still reconnect with the love for your why? Why you're doing all of this? It's interesting because it actually follows my journey of this why. I started out almost over-complicating everything with my nutrition and trying to do all these biohockey things in the very early days and when I was first trying to address all these health issues, I really over-complicated it. Then as I've gotten older and as I've built gem and we have this very simple bite, it's also simplified my relationship with health and how I've managed to stress. The best wellness hacks in life are actually free and they're all very simple, right? It's getting sleep, it's going out and moving your body regularly, even if it's a walk, it doesn't have to be a high intensity workout necessarily. It's getting out in nature, it's getting enough water. Of course it's filling your gaps in your diet and it's nourishment and it's nutrition, but truthfully it's just the foundation of that. All the other stuff is extra and fun and do I love sonas and cold plunge and experimenting with breathwork, of course. I love all of that. It's fun to dabble, but at the end, the best things that you can do for your stress come down to that and community, right? Having a great social circle and people that you really want to invest time in that fuel you and you fuel them and thinking about just the fundamentals is what's so important and once you do that, it becomes less stressful. As I've gotten older, whenever I start to over complicate something or start to get really worked up or I feel like my hormones are off again or I pull myself back and I say, "Am I doing the foundational fundamental things?" Am I getting enough movement in my getting through nutrition? Am I getting enough water? Am I getting enough sleep? Let's just start there. I feel like if a lot of people did that, our stress levels would all come down naturally. Yeah, I mean, those are the first things to go, typically, when we are stressed. We don't prioritize sleep. We forget to drink water. We don't, you know, and then when you're sleep deprived, at least for me, I gravitate towards like sugary things and then I'm filling my diet with sugar and then that's going to impact my mood and it's going to, it's just like this horrible cycle, but I like your point a lot about community. I think that's actually a really big part to helping us manage our stress levels and I don't know if you can resonate with this, but my podcast is very much a passion project for me. It is not my full-time job right now at the moment. I don't know if it ever will be, maybe I have, I really have no idea, but the way I run my podcast, it feels like a small little business to me and it's fun because I have a lot of creative agency over it, but it also is really stressful because I'm the type of person that likes to be told what to do and then I'll do it and then I feel that sense of like, okay, self-efficacy, I did it, I can do more. But the point I'm making with this anecdote is that sometimes when you really want something to go somewhere or you're so dedicated and determined and heads down, it's easy to overwork yourself and let the beauty of social connection fall to the wayside because it just simply feels like there's not enough time to just enjoy time with your friends, time with your family. So how have you maintained some sort of balance with staying driven, staying motivated, working towards something and keeping yourself accountable to that? Well, also not letting your relationship suffer because of that focus that you've cultivated. It's super hard and I by no means have been perfect, right? I've gone up and down this roller coaster. When you're in the first two years of starting a company, I would say it's almost impossible. It's gotten better as you know, we've gotten older as a company and I've gotten bigger team or help not doing everything anymore. You know, that types of things help a lot. But I love, I don't know if you're familiar, are you familiar with Blue Zones? Yes, and I actually have been wanting to watch the documentary and I know there's a Blue Zone in Greece that I would absolutely love. It is, it would be too. Yes, so Blue Zones are these areas and pockets of the world where they have these communities that have all these centenarians, right, so people who live to a hundred or more longer. And so they've studied like what are the commonalities amongst these communities that allow them to live so long and has to flourishing life. And it's again, the fundamentals, right? So they talk about getting movement. They talk about getting nutrient dense foods in their diet. But they also talk about community. It's one of those health pillars that I feel like is often overlooked. What I love about the Blue Zones diet is they they're not necessarily like these people aren't stressed. It's like these people have outlets and ways of managing stress that are in common and in some of that is foods. Some of that's water, some that's movement, some that's nature, but some of that's also just having a strong community and investing in that. And so I think when you think about it from a health lens, you approach it differently too. And you know, we all go through different chapters in life where you know, you might start out with a lot of friends and maybe you find that actually what is best for you is very few friends that you go deep with or maybe it's the opposite for you. I don't know you have to find out what works for you. It's not just about parting, you know, with your friends though, that's fun and great too. It's about finding those moments that fuel you. And that's what's important. And so for everyone that looks differently, but I think forming strong social bonds in general is something you should think about through the lens of health and perhaps in that way it'll help you prioritize it. And I love your point about how the people that are in these Blue Zones, it's not like they're not experiencing stress, they have these outlets. We can't ever really eradicate stress nor would we want to because it is like at the end of a day, if you look at it from a biological perspective or looking at it from an evolutionary perspective, it's a survival mechanism really. We need a stress response to tell us what's safe and what's not so safe. And so when we think about our health and really our happiness and a sense of holistic well-being, it's not necessarily like we need to eradicate these negative experiences or happy people, never experience sadness or happy and healthy people, never experience moments that their health is not flourishing. Like that's just not true. I love that you bring up this comment because I do believe that there's still this misconception that's portrayed or the way that you know health and happiness is perhaps communicated online and on social media doesn't necessarily accurately depict like life and how people do experience hard things, but it's really within your own power to choose how you're going to respond to it and how you're going to cultivate a sense of joy from whatever curveballs are thrown at you. That's a beautiful way to put it. And that's exactly what I encourage everyone to do, which is very fitting for your podcast. Finding your endorphins, finding the ways to cultivate the joy is so important. Has there been any inflection point in your life or throughout your entrepreneurial journey that has forced you to think about this more deeply or maybe forced you to change a behavior or a pattern so that you could find more enjoyment through times that maybe we're a bit more difficult or not as exciting as the parts of entrepreneurship or the parts of starting a company that really do excite you and come back to your why. Like has there been anything that's been kind of like a pivotal moment for you that forced you to reevaluate some of these topics? For sure. I mean I'm trying to think there's definitely been pivotal moments where I've experienced real burnout. And so burnout is a result of you feeling like you're not really evolving or growing. And it's when you've exhausted everything and you don't have a healthy balance at all in life. And so some people call this work life balance or something like that. I'm not sure what that is yet. But there are like there was I think a point maybe about like year and a half ago I experienced this very deeply and I actually worked with a coach on this. And so I got some help. And again very simple solutions. Like there was a point where I apparently never even took a break during the day to go for a walk around the block. I mean it was you know the height of COVID we were doing back-to-back video calls. I was a disaster of a scheduler. I just didn't create space in my life at all. For like my own movement and worse it actually didn't do me any favors for my creativity or for my job. And that's why I was experiencing burnout right because I never allowed myself the moment to walk around and let a thought sink in or to think creatively about how I could dress. an issue that I was having, I was just trying to bulldoze, you know, through every day with kind of blinders on and it didn't allow me to evolve or grow. So I'm trying to say it simply. I don't know if there's ever one like big pivotal moment or crash that I've had. I think it's been a buildup over time where I've felt it. I've noticed it and actually proved to be a blocker in my life. And then I brought in help. I addressed it and then I tried to create new habits and new routines that helped me grow. I'm not sure if that totally answered your question, but yeah, it does. And it's interesting because I agree with you. I don't think that maybe there's like one big aha moment. I mean, this could fluctuate from person to person, but I think typically these revelations kind of spark as a byproduct of multiple smaller things happening, right? And so once you kind of hit that insight, you're forced to have to make a change or you're forced to have to figure out new ways to find maybe not a balance because I don't know if we can ever truly stay balanced. You know, inherently you're going to have to give your attention to one thing more than another, but more so finding those strategies and ways to integrate so that you don't feel overwhelmed. I think the emotion feeling overwhelmed is probably one of the most like stressful things somewhat can experience is just a feeling of being overwhelmed because when you're feeling like you're underwater, then there's this lack of, you know, even knowing where to start, where to begin and not necessarily recognizing that even one small step, even one small change, can make a positive impact. You know, like going back to what you said earlier, the importance of those fundamentals, getting enough sleep, getting in, you know, some sort of daily movement. If your mood is really, really sad or you're just not having it or you feel overwhelmed and overworked, what's going to motivate you to want to go for the walk around the block? Like what's going to motivate someone to actually take those small steps. So I think it's so critical that we again, back to your earlier point, have that support system to remind us like these are things you can do and it's okay if right now you need a little break. And I think it's really important to think about this as your journey, right? There's no indesination. It is a balance. And that's why I talk about curiosity a lot, being curious about your body. I know this sounds very woo-woo, but sometimes you go into a grocery store, really like listen to your body, just look at the vegetables and be like, what am I craving right now? My craving carrots and my craving broccoli, like your body actually will naturally start to crave things when you listen to it of what it really needs. Try it out. But I think it's just, you know, that curiosity, right? Because there might be an aha or pivot on the way for some people, but it might just be a slow buildup. And if you're not paying attention, if you're not listening, if you're not asking yourself those questions, it can spiral out of control and that overwhelming can get worse and worse. And so just being curious, I think, and knowing that it is a journey, I sometimes cringe when I use that work. I think it's overuse in my, but you know, that it is something that you have to reestablish at each age too. Because your hormones change a lot at every age. For my late 20s to now, I guess I'm approaching my mid 30s, it's all very different. And so you start to need different things. And then you hit menopause, you know, you have a whole other way of nourishing your body at that point too. So it does require re-evaluation. Right. And doing maybe having those internal audits, I think, is so important. Because it's, humans are like, to, you know, we see comfort, we like routine. And so sometimes you actually do need to change up your routine. And you need to bring that awareness back to yourself and think, wait, what do I actually need and want right now? Funny story about this. Well, it's not really that funny, but funny to me, because just the fact that we're having this conversation. And I had the exact same thought earlier, like learning how to listen to my body. This morning I woke up with the intention of going to the gym before my 9 AM call. And I kept hitting snooze. I was like, honestly, I just want to lay in bed a little bit longer. And then I finally got up. And it was early enough where I had time to still go to the gym or I could take a nice long leisurely walk throughout Madison Square Park all around the neighborhood. And you know, I said to myself, Stella, like, I literally walked past my gym and I looked inside and I was like, I could go in here and get in my workout or I could actually go on this walk and like, look at the foliage. And I know that's going to make me feel peaceful in the morning and like, go get my coffee and take a nice hour to myself and then come to my desk and work. And like, maybe if I can fit in a run later, I will. And I'm so glad I made that decision because I felt so much happier when I arrived back at my desk. I ran into a friend I hadn't seen literally in months on my walk. And then I ended up having a pocket of time in the afternoon to go for like a 30 minute run. So I was able to, you know, kill two birds with one stone. And so instead of feeling guilty, like, oh, Stella, you didn't go to the gym this morning, I share this because I'm still very much learning how to actually trust what my body wants. What I need, it rather than feeling like I should be doing one thing or another. So it is a lifelong learning and process and journey that I think I'm just starting to kind of like get be at the tip of the iceberg with. Yeah. And it's embracing the messiness to of it, right? That we're not perfect. They're going to have unfinished things and being okay with that, trying to like, relish in it, find joy in it. It's not like you're going to figure it out overnight and you're not intended to. So. Well, shifting gears a little bit since we're on the topic of happiness and joy and learning to really find that greater intuition with yourself. How has your own perspective on happiness shifted throughout the course of your life and how you seek out joy in life? A lot of what we've talked about, right? So a big shift was just how I related to my stress. I never actually thought about stress or community as a pillar within my health. I thought about nutrition, I thought about exercise, about certain things. So, you know, reestablishing my connection with those areas of my life as pillars of my health were huge, but also actually very similar to your story about being in nature. I moved from New York to LA when I started Gem. I grew up on a farm in Oregon. So I grew up around nature. It's what, you know, my child self loved and what my adult self loves and moving out to the West Coast helped me reestablish my, you know, I surf now. I ride horses again. I go for hikes. Nature is one of those things that I instantly feel endorphins. And it's been important for me. So that's been one of the things that I feel like I've been more cognizant about as I've gotten older, of making sure every week that I do. I mean, there's a reality of my life. I'm near a computer to where a fully remote team now most of my work is here inside indoors next to a computer, but I do try to find pockets of my day where I can be out in the ocean or under a tree. The joy is of living in California. What I would do to have an ocean like down, you know, it's fun because they just opened up a new part of like the pier on the West Side Highway where they made like a fake little beach. And it's honestly so nice. I mean, I don't want to dive into the Hudson River and go for a swim. It's not the same vibe, but that's I think such a benefit of being out on the West Coast is having that type of access to nature. But I really love those responses. And I do think if, you know, anyone who's listening, if you live in like an urban city or you're in a place like New York, it's so important to sometimes just take a step back and like take a weekend for yourself or go on a hike or do something like that. You know, I'm actually heading out to Arizona this week and my whole intention for this trip is to hike and to do yoga. And I'm so excited because I've never really been to Arizona at least, you know, taken a trip that I could remember. So really looking forward to that. And hopefully I get my little endorphin boost. And you might have answered this final question that I have for you and other parts of the interview. But something that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast Sarah is what brings you in Dwarfen. So besides nature, which I know we talked about, what is something that brings you a bit of joy every day? And besides nourishment, because I guess nutrition, of course, I have, you know, I'm a little biased on that one given what I do. But it brings me a lot of joy. I love tinkering in the kitchen and playing with different foods and just having a relationship. I'm not like an amazing cook by any stretch. It's more just, I think it brings me joy and happiness to experiment and play with all things like food and nutrition. So certainly that. And I mean, I can, yeah, we covered a lot of this, right? My relationships, my friends, you know, my own community. I'm very grateful for that. And I've worked really hard at investing in that and cultivating that as well. So I think also to add on to your point, I get a lot of endorphins from like experimenting in the kitchen, but doing it for others. You know, I get kind of lazy and I'm like, I don't want to cook for myself. But when I get to do it for other people, I'd have a dinner party or have a friend over for dinner. It's so much more joyful for me. So I do resonate with your answer because I do like to cook, even though I'm not the best chef either. But for me, there's a lot of joy that comes from making a little event out of it. Exactly. I'm happy you said that because that's what brings me joy's hosting. I love to even if it's just putting together like this sort of crudite board, like your crudite board, whatever it is, just like even if it's not cooking, right? If it's just having fun and having people over and just hosting and sharing in that food, like that is. is what brings me so much joy. I actually do not like to cook for myself. (laughs) I will go find anyone to share dinner with me because yeah, I just love to share food. - Yeah, and I don't understand people who don't like to share food. I'm like, if we're gonna go out to eat, I will most likely be doing like a little appetizer situation where we're splitting everything or we're splitting mains. Like the more the merrier, that's my own belief. (laughs) - That's really gross me and Joy's hands. - The joy of sharing, absolutely. - Well Sarah, it was such a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on today. Where can my listeners connect with you? Where can they try out gem for themselves and feel like they have a bit more joy in their morning routine by having some of your product? - You can find us online dailygem.com. DAILYGEM.com. And you can connect with me at daily_gem on Instagram. - Amazing, I will hyperlink all of this in the show notes. And we also have a promo code so you can get your very own daily gem as well. So I will link the unique everyday endorphins code also in the interview and it'll also be on my Instagram. So everyone who's listening can go get their own product there and use my code if your heart so desires. (laughs) Thank you so much Sarah. It was an absolute pleasure having you today. - Thank you Stella. It was great being here. (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)