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Ever wish you had a mentor to help you become who you were meant to be? Crystal Ware is redefining what it means to become your best self, in business, life, and love and sharing everything she she knows to get YOU there faster.
Are you stuck? Feel like you are meant for more but not sure how to breakthrough? Every week, we will explore all of your questions on building a path to true happiness, achieving success and creating our dream life. Brick by brick, we will work through the issues and mindsets that keep us stuck, dive into finding our passion and how to take ACTION. Clarity (vision) + Confidence (Owning your worth) + Courage (to live life on your own terms and become your own CEO) propels you to your destiny. And the good news it: its all within you!
Each week, host, Crystal Ware, will bring you all of the practical wisdom to grow every aspect of your career and life including mindset, vision, goal planning, social media management, financial acumen and so much more. You'll also meet top business leaders, entrepreneurs, mompreneurers and innovative thinkers who invested in themselves and found their way success and happiness by leading on their own terms.
You were made for more, so start living like it today. Join us as we take action, grow together, and get inspired to reach for your dreams.
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Get Clear with Crystal Ware podcast, the place where we get clear on our goals, own our worth, and learn to be the CEOs of our own lives. I'm your host, Crystal Ware, lawyer and former Fortune 500 corporate leader. Who found the confidence to say goodbye to a lucrative career and start my own business.
Now I'm opening up the playbook and sharing everything I've learned to get you there faster. It may not be easy, but it will always be worth it because you are made for more. So put on your big girl pants, jump on board and let's reach for the stars. Are you ready to get clear?
Crystal Ware: Time it is that you're listening to this. I am so excited for our guests today. We have Rachel sober Sanders on, who is a founder, innovator, wellness expert, and totally committed to helping us ladies that are 30 plus to achieve vibrant health. She is the founder and CEO of routine, which is a modern [00:01:00] supplement. So I am just really excited to dive into all of those things because you guys know how much I care and am passionate about health and wellness and things that, you know, come up in our thirties. And now that I'm in my early forties, all the things that we want to know and talk about She is on it. So thank you so much for carving out an hour.
I know that's really, really hard as a busy mom. So welcome to the show.
Rachel Sanders: Thanks so much for having me excited to be
Crystal Ware: Yeah. Well, I want to dive right in one of the things I like for people to hear about, because I think it's like really interesting to how do you become a founder and like, what is the life journey? So give us a quick background of how your journey went to like get you to where you are right now, sitting in your house or your office, talking to us.
Rachel Sanders: I went a little bit of an untraditional route when it comes to becoming a founder, but when you put [00:02:00] all the pieces together and look back, it actually makes sense. So I started my life living in a household where holistic health was really something that we talked about on a daily basis, where I was thinking about what I was doing from a nutrition, from a supplementation, from a lifestyle standpoint, both in terms of how am I preventing illness, but then if I did get sick, what was I doing?
My mom was taking me to the local natural food store way back. Longer ago than I'd like to admit in terms of how old I am, but it was a very transformative or kind of experience for me, I would say, and as I transitioned into my early career, early life, so early 20s, just getting out of college, my body started breaking down.
A lot to do with the job that I was in at the time I was working in finance and investment banking and for anyone listening who doesn't know that world or hasn't heard about it think like Wolf of Wall Street, but you're working like 100 hour weeks. It's crazy. You're always in the office. There's high stress.
And of course, my body wasn't taking it well. And so when I went to look at what was Something I could [00:03:00] do to fix it. What are the supplements? What's the nutrition? What's the lifestyle? It's kind of lost because I didn't have that guidance for my mom from that household where I was, I was more by myself.
And I realized that's an experience that so many people have, right? Like they walk into a supplement aisle and they want to make changes, but it's so overwhelming to figure out where do I even start and that's really the start of my light bulb moment where. At the time I was working in health care. So I was doing investment banking, working with health care tech and services companies, seeing all this innovation happening on the sick care side of things.
So once people got sick, technology, data science, things that were improving patient experience and patient outcomes, there was nothing like that on the holistic health side of the world. And I said, why can't we apply all of this technology Has access to health data that we've never had before and take a much more data driven scientific approach to holistic health.
And that's really what routine does. So our mission is to create smarter supplements for your most vibrant health. And today that looks like some of our core products are our functional drink mixes for [00:04:00] sleep, stress, and focus, which are all third party tested clinician formulated. Backed by science and then we're going an even step further to invest in clinical trials and beyond routine as a company.
I also have personally gone through a lot of health issues even since starting the company. So I became a mom and then I became a mom of two, entered into my mid 30s and started dealing with. a bunch of issues. I was desperately trying to look and feel like myself again. After my baby, I was doing all the wellness things that I thought I should be doing that actually worked in my twenties.
Um, but they weren't working. I had sleep issues. I was extra moody. I was really easily overstimulated. I trouble losing the baby weight after a couple of months and I was just frustrated, felt lost, confused, and things just felt hard. And that's when I really started realizing and digging into cortisol and hormones and understanding how stress impacts you.
Everything in our body, and that was the kind of starting point for these products, these functional drink mixes, where we spent the next 12 months digging into problems that I was personally experiencing. And then what are the [00:05:00] solutions, the simple tools, the products, the ingredients that could really help move the needle to.
Balance my cortisol levels to help improve sleep to help with brain fog and focus. And that's really where I've spent a lot of my time. Plus sharing everything I've learned along the way on my journey, over the past almost year now, I'm asking a community of about 119, uh, across social, my newsletter,
Crystal Ware: Wow. And so
like on that journey, take us a little bit through that because I know you mentioned that you had lost like nearly 52 pounds, getting your stress in line, managing your cortisol. Tell us how you really found out and dug into that being the issue.
And then I really want to know why have we not been talking about these things? so much.
Rachel Sanders: the, why we haven't been talking about these things. I could probably talk for hours on, but I can talk more about my journey specifically. So after my second baby, I had gained more weight, with him than I did with my first. It's pretty typical. You're a mom, you, your first baby, you [00:06:00] have it, you don't gain a ton of weight, you bounce back pretty quickly, and then the second one comes and you try to do the same things and it just wasn't working.
I was working out three to four, five days a week, I was getting in my steps, I was doing the nutrition, all the things that worked before. And the way just wasn't coming off the same way and around the same time us as a company were building out some new at home lab tests because we also have lab tests, cortisol being one of them.
And that's the point where I started digging in further to the research, really understanding what an optimal cortisol curve look like. What is cortisol? It's your stress hormone, why it's so impactful and can be so bothersome in the body, why it creates so many issues. If your cortisol is in balance, I took that test, realized that my cortisol was.
too low in the morning and too high at night. It can be too low and too high, which most people don't realize. And alongside my clinical nutritionist or our in house clinical nutritionist that we have, um, here at routine, I really started to understand that a lot of the symptoms that I was experiencing was because of that imbalance where not only was I [00:07:00] having that trouble losing weight, but I was dealing with acne in a way that I had never dealt with.
I had gut issues. I had that like tired, but wired feeling at night where I was exhausted. But then at night, right, when I would need to go to bed, I would get this like wired and I could stay up and watch TV or work for two more hours, and that's not normal. And so that's when I started making a bunch of changes across my lifestyle, across my nutrition, across my workouts, how I was working and the products that I was taking in terms of supplements, and Also, when we started building out our product line, that we have today on the drink mixes and those simple changes really made a big difference.
And those are what I really share too. Cause it's not, who has time for a two hour morning protocol or like spending 10 hours a day on self care and wellness, literally no one. so what are the things that you could actually incorporate into your daily life? Is. It's what I tested, tried, did all the things and found some stuff that worked for me.
Crystal Ware: Yeah. And did you like cut back some of [00:08:00] what you're doing in an effort to like, not overwork your cortisol
Rachel Sanders: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Crystal Ware: raise it?
Rachel Sanders: Yeah. So my workouts, I was doing a lot of high intensity cardio, and for me specifically with where my cortisol levels were, it was not helping me. And so I switched a lot to more strength training. So I do four strength training
days a week, and more walking, and specifically walking outside.
Crystal Ware: Yeah. Because I will tell you, I
am a, it even pains me right now, Rachel, to say like a former marathoner. I mean, I did marathons. I mean, I was. I went to Tennessee actually to run the Memphis, the child St. Jude's marathon. Yes. Thank you for raising money, for childhood cancer.
And I had gone five months, five months after my son was born, ready to run like a PR race. and I was fine. but then after my third baby. I was still [00:09:00] running, I, Boston qualified, and then I guess it was when I turned 39. It was just, I hit the floor. I could not work out with any intensity like that without getting sick.
I mean, I was getting sick and my doctor was looking at me like, you're crazy. You're running 12 miles is not making you sick. And I'm like, I think it is because when I dial it back, I'm not catching colds and being sick all the time. And, I tried to kind of bump it back up last year and immediately I got sick.
And so it is, that's why it was so interesting to me because I feel like I have dealt with this and it was this thing that I was trying to dive into and even my doctor like didn't take the time or didn't understand what was going on. One of the things that I have learned, in doing some research myself is that a lot of what works is not studied on women of our age.
And do you find that, that's really troublesome?
Rachel Sanders: Yeah, there's all sorts of [00:10:00] problems that you highlighted in that story just right there. One, doctors aren't taking the time, A. They're also not as trained in what's going on from like a hormone cortisol perspective. they're not having you do the functional lab test that actually gets to the root of what's going on.
and, As you mentioned, like a lot of the stuff that has worked isn't done on studies. Clinical trials didn't include women until the 90s because of the hormone fluctuations. and we also know that women in there between 35 and 55 are in their peak cortisol imbalance years. And so all of this coming together is like, uh, huge issue because so many people are experiencing it and they don't really know where to start or what to do.
And cortisol symptoms show up in a lot of different ways and what works for you is very different from what works for other people. And so it does take some trial and testing around the natural stress relief. It also has so much to do with [00:11:00] your life, like how are you using your phone, what does your work schedule look like, what does your family look like, like there's so many factors that you have to think about.
It's not just a, alright, you're getting sick so I'm gonna give you cold medicine. It's like your cortisol is imbalanced which is creating immune issues which means we need to look at your whole body and your whole life versus just the one individual piece
that
doctors are so comfortable doing.
Crystal Ware: Yeah.so how are you actually doing the testing? Because I have done a cortisol testing before, but with our hormone fluctuations and stuff, is it something that you recommend to do like in a certain timeframe? Like you need to do it every two weeks for two months or like, how do you really establish the pattern
Rachel Sanders: Yeah, so cortisol as we look at hormones, I think about it as a food pyramid. Cortisol is on the base. So it's one of our major hormones alongside insulin and oxytocin that impacts [00:12:00] all of the rest of our hormones. So when people say hormones, a lot of people think about like our estrogen and progesterone.
If your cortisol is imbalanced, it can actually throw off the estrogen and progesterone. So thinking about cortisol. is a really good thing and good place to start if you're experiencing a lot of these issues. In terms of testing, I always recommend a test that looks at your cortisol throughout your day because it's supposed to follow a rhythm.
It's supposed to be highest in the morning and then slowly go down and be the lowest at night to allow your body to produce the melatonin it fall asleep. A lot of people's rhythm Doesn't follow that. We actually looked at over 144, 000 data points in scientific literature to create an optimal range Throughout the day and what cortisol what your cortisol should look like Some people will take a blood test like a single point blood test.
That's likely going to miss What's happening throughout your day. So for example, if I took a blood test in the afternoon, my cortisol would have said it, or my [00:13:00] results would have said my cortisol was fine, even though it was out of optimal range in the morning and out of optimal range at night. And so being able to see the multiple points is really important.
and then in terms of how often you're testing, most people with our tests specifically are testing once every six months or once a year, but even if it's something where. You think that you might have cortisol imbalance test once, get a baseline, start to understand what your cortisol is looking like, and then start to make those changes.
Cause the other thing that our results show is some recommended changes across nutrition, across lifestyle, sleep, movement, et cetera. So. to really balance what's going on in your body, specifically based off your results.
Crystal Ware: I think.
It's awesome to have these resources and tools, but where can people find real doctors or, homeopathic providers who can guide you on those points? Because, you know, I [00:14:00] can go online and I could start reading, I need this supplement, I need that supplement. But you know, if you just start throwing all the things there, then like, you don't know how they're interacting with each other.
You don't know what all is going on. I mean, it is. There is science to it, right? So like where do people find somebody? do you guys offer like holistic? like the full pack spectrums, you know, a package or where, what do you recommend for people to do?
Rachel Sanders: So our results and all of that, um, the personalized dashboard is all built out by clinicians and our in house clinical nutritionist. So it's all driven with a background in science by clinicians who treat these conditions daily, but we don't have, folks where You're going to go see someone. What I say from that perspective, if you're looking for a physician or a clinician provider to help guide you in this, definitely look for someone that has experience in hormone health.
and that can be everyone from a clinical nutritionist [00:15:00] to a hormone to a cortisol expert, et cetera, registered dietitians. There's some folks there, of course, functional medicine doctors, but a traditional. MD without the additional training is not the person that's going to be able to guide you on this journey.
Going down the functional integrative route is very expensive. And so finding resources from even from like my newsletter, it's a free resource. I always share free Simple tips that are science backed that have
also worked for me. That's another great place to start from a affordability standpoint.
Crystal Ware: I love that. And I love
that. And everybody, we will have a link for her newsletter on here. So you can check that out because your content is great. And that's how I found you, you were on another one of my friends podcasts, and then I started following your stuff and I was like, Oh my God, like, this is it.
This is all the stuff that I love and love to talk about and love to know about. Because I do think it's like a missing key piece of [00:16:00] what we have going on. So for people that are really like results driven, how long do you feel like it took you to start feeling a little bit more like your old self?
And how long did it take to see some of the weight coming off? So people don't have an unrealistic expectation, you know,
Rachel Sanders: So I
lost 52 pounds in 10 months, um,
Crystal Ware: so big.
Rachel Sanders: unrealistic. Yeah, that could be unrealistic for some people, but I lost the majority of it. In like the last five months or four months, I would say, it wasn't budging and then all of a sudden it did, but that's very, it's going to be very specific.
And this is done in conjunction with. I'm working out very strategically, I'm eating well, I'm getting my steps in, I'm taking my adaptogen supplements that also help with cortisol support, I'm getting the sleep that I need, and doing all of the things, it's a holistic effort with cortisol balance and the healthy eating and the [00:17:00] working out that help me achieve those goals.
If you're someone who Maybe you're not on a weight loss journey, but you're just wanting to feel less overstimulated, less irritable, dealing with mood issues, you want to combat your rain fog, be more productive, sleep better. the products that we have from a stress, sleep, and focus perspective, they are meant and formulated to be fast acting.
So most people are feeling results there within 20 minutes, and you're getting the long term benefits too. they're not something you have to take for a month or two months or three months before you feel any difference. Thanks. I take the stress drink mix at night as my wine alternative and I like immediately feel calmer and more relaxed.
every time my husband takes it, he passes out on the couch because he's like so relaxed. he's like, Oh, I fell asleep again, watching TV. And so it's that, that really Sleep and focus are the same where if you want to start to combat some of those symptoms and you want some immediate effects, uh, these products are really helpful and they're all natural clinician formulated.
They just have adaptogens, are. mostly herbs. [00:18:00] You can hear about adaptogenic mushrooms. We don't have mushrooms in our products. Um, but ours are herbs like stress has ashwagandha, rhodiola, sleep is theanine, phosphatidylserine are some of the ones. And then focus has bacopa and ginseng, which some folks have probably
heard
about.
Um, but they're all natural formulations to help support you where you need it.
Crystal Ware: And so are those products that somebody could take like throughout the day, taking all three in one day?
Rachel Sanders: I take all three in one day? most
Crystal Ware: Yeah, that's awesome. So what was that process
like? Like for the entrepreneur out there, the lady that has a thought that like, you know, there's this skincare thing that I'm missing in my routine or whatever that somebody might be. I always think about weird stuff and then, most things are out there, but you never know.
You can always try something new. I've been thinking about, hair dye that is natural because I feel like getting my hair colored, is making my scalp dry, like for a week or two after. But anyway, that's just one thing I've been thinking about, but how, you've been on this holistic journey, this kind of like been part of your life.
Since [00:19:00] you were a child, and I love that, kudos to your mom, how did you like start to find the right pieces and put the things together? Did you get funding? did you start, you know, by investing in yourself? Like, what was that process
Rachel Sanders: Yeah, all great questions. So, Routine started with a different core product, our smart multivitamin, which is custom dosed to your biological data. We have that. People love it. And through that experience, we really got to know our customers. We got to know the problems, we understood the market better, and we heard so many people come to us and say, I love the multi, but do you have anything for sleep?
Or, I love the multi, but I'm really stressed. Like, do you have anything for that? Do you have anything to help me get through my day better? Help me get through my to do list better? And then I was, at the same time, I was experiencing these problems. We also saw, just generally, there is a mental wellness crisis for millennial and Gen X women, where People are more stressed, more burnt out, more overwhelmed than ever before.
CNN even saying that millennials are facing the first well [00:20:00] being decline in over a hundred years and women are just suffering. And they're generally being ignored within this demo as well. There's very little product innovation. There's very little brands that are really talking to these women, building products specifically for her.
And all of this came together. We have the opportunity to build something here that is based on science, based on what we know our customers are needing. We know personally what these problems are. So what is the form factor? Is it powders? Is it pills? Is it drink mixes? Is it gummies? Like, how do we think about that?
And then how are we also going to market it? So that's really how we got to where we are, but to simplify it, we saw a problem. We understood it really personally, both myself and other members of our team are millennial plus thirties, forties, mostly women who understand what's needed in the market. And then we worked for a really long time with [00:21:00] clinicians, with scientists, with our formulators to build products that had scientific backing, so all the ingredients are research proven to have the impact that you want.
We then worked with. A flavor house to get the products to be really good that people like love taking them every single day. and then from there we launched it. There's a lot of steps in between, but that's the, simplified version of how these products came to be really rooted in my
personal health struggles and then brought on by everything else
going on in the world.
Crystal Ware: And so what is the current marketing,structure? Like how are y'all getting products out? I see all your content. So I think like as a founder and a CEO, obviously you're doing your job to a perfect T on getting that out there, but like outside of that, what are you guys doing?
Rachel Sanders: Yeah, we have a 360 degree approach to marketing. as we kind of think about launching and scaling the product, we do. A lot of founder led content. So you can go follow me at Rachel soap Sanders. I've got my newsletter. [00:22:00] I'm just starting restarting on tech tack, growing that quickly as well. but that's one of our kind of approaches both, for my own accounts, but we've also got, other kind of branded, Organic content that we put out, which is really helpful across the board.
we do some paid, we work with, have an approach to influencer as well. And then we're opening up retail as well. So you'll be seeing
routine And more retail stores over the next 12 to 24 months.
Crystal Ware: That's amazing. And are you partnering when, with retail, like potentially, I'm not saying you can, obviously if you have a deal in the works, you cannot say, so guys, I'm not, I'm just saying this cause it's what everybody knows. would that be like a target or are you looking at your own standalone stores?
Rachel Sanders: We're not looking at our own standalone stores, so we're looking to partner with retailers that already exist, where our customers are often
going.
Crystal Ware: Yeah, that's awesome. What do you think has been like the hardest thing that you've experienced in this journey on entrepreneurship? there's a lot of hard
Rachel Sanders: I think that, [00:23:00] I think that changes every single day. I think today, one of the things that is today, and as I, If I'm picking today, one of the things is just like operating within a business landscape where I as a human show up with integrity, where I act in the best possible interest of the company and try to be as fair as humanly possible across the board and just like continue to believe in the good in everyone.
And obviously not everyone in business does that. So anytime you're going up or having conversations or, or dealing with situations, there's always things that come up, fire drills, et cetera, that you as the founder, as the CEO have to handle, and that's less fun than sharing the, uh, sharing the products, being innovative, create, creating new marketing campaigns, sharing my tips, tricks, and tools that really work for me.
I mean, we're here on a mission to make an impact. And so anything that takes me away from my ability to, Move that forward and it's more admin
or founder [00:24:00] CEO stuff. that's a little bit harder.
Crystal Ware: Yeah, for sure. I have found that in my
own journey that I love being social and I love creating, and while I'm good at business, I don't like want to do all those things. I was just talking with one of my business partners today when we had coffee before this about that. Yeah. Like. Listen, if you want to do these pieces, I'm, if you good do it, we can give you a salary for that.
If you want to outsource it, I'm not going to do it. There's just like things that I know that I don't want to do. But you know, with that being said, you still have to do stuff that you don't want to do. Like as a business
Rachel Sanders: Oh, of course. A hundred
Crystal Ware: Yeah. And people want to put on the rose colored glasses like, Oh, it's going to be
amazing.
I'm gonna have my own business. I'm going to be the boss. Nobody's going to boss me around. No, you still have to answer to people like it's not great.
Rachel Sanders: And I, I mean, with that, like as a continuation of kind of what I was saying, it's like, there's just constant ups and downs. And I think that that anyone thinking about starting a business, whether it's. Your own like coaching [00:25:00] business, you're building a podcast or you're going out for venture capital funding.
So we're VC, VC backed and or, and or bootstrapping there's always going to be things. That come up that get you down and there's always going to be things that come up that are awesome And so you have this roller coaster of emotions constantly like every hour Maybe even like every cup 15 minutes. And so you have to be ready to take on that mental load And have the tools in your toolbox to be able to regulate yourself.
If something really bad and annoying and frustrating that makes you angry comes up, what are you going to do? If something that's like so amazing and it's like the best thing that you've ever heard, it's like going to completely change the face of the company, how are you regulating that emotion too?
Because if you go on that rollercoaster constantly, the high highs and the low lows, it will get really, really bad. Really hard to continue to be consistent and
you will
deal with burnout quite [00:26:00] quickly if you can't kind of figure all of that out.
Crystal Ware: Yeah. I was just working on
some content about mom guilt. And that's one of the things that I was talking about with there is like the flexibility, like flexibility, In how we are taking the day, like, don't be so married to something and married to an expectation. And because when we have those rigid expectations of ourselves, of other people, of the world, of our children, then that is where we see this.
they've let me down. I've let myself down. And there's like these terrible feelings that aren't beneficial to anybody. and yeah, when you're in business and you're dealing with a whole host of people with different personalities, different backgrounds, like, you know, and that, that's, I think about that a lot because it's something that I have personally struggled with having a very high bar for myself and then working my way through corporate America and other places in business.
you know, working with people where it's like, we gotta make room for all the ways, all the people, all the [00:27:00] experiences. Otherwise, because I was that person where it's like, Oh my God, I'm so mad. I'm so sad. I'm so happy. And it's like some level of, you know, balance and consistency is a lot more positive than, because that is life.
There's going to be ups and downs, no matter what you're doing.
Rachel Sanders: Yeah,
Crystal Ware: so is it one fund backing you or like, do you have a multiple investors?
Rachel Sanders: We have multiple investors?
Crystal Ware: Yeah. That's that. And then that's a whole nother thing you have to deal with
is different, you know, things going on there. Well that, that is amazing.
So what is next
for routine or for Rachel? Like what else is on the horizon for you?
Rachel Sanders: Yeah. For a routine, we're really just excited to continue to scale these products. We're launching, we launched on Amazon a couple months ago. We're launching on TikTok shop shortly. So it's really, we launched the products and it's really about scaling them and getting them in the hands of more people because we really want to make them The biggest impact that we possibly can.
and then in terms of what's next for me, a lot of the same, a lot of what I've been doing. So just continuing to [00:28:00] share on social, all the things that I'm learning, all the free, simple tips, tricks, and tools that you can use to balance your cortisol, relieve your stress, naturally sleep better, improve your
productivity and just become that happiest, healthiest, most productive version of you.
Crystal Ware: So what do you say to people on how you balance motherhood with CEO and founder duties? Thanks.
Rachel Sanders: I don't know that I have the best answer. I would say becoming a mom during this experience, I've never done motherhood a different way. So I don't actually know what it's like to be a mom and not be a founder, which is pretty crazy to say. and so I try my best. I'm very consistent with my schedule. I ask for help, a lot of help. I set boundaries where I can and. You have to just give yourself grace too, because there's days that you're going to get that call from your kid's school where you got to come pick them up and maybe you don't have childcare ready right then.
And [00:29:00] you have to work around your schedule and you just kind of have to figure it out. But, you have to. Kind of just balance it the other thing that I do to. make sure that I'm staying sane or as sane as possible in this is making sure I'm spending time on my own self care.
So I am someone who feels zero mom guilt about taking time to work out, to go for a walk on the weekends to say, Hey, I need a 30 minute break to like, go take a shower and not be around the kids right now. Can like we make that happen because I know that if I don't get that, I am not a great mom. I am not a great CEO.
I'm not a great partner. And so just being really clear around. What I need, when I need it, taking the time for myself and not feeling guilty about it has been one of the biggest things that has helped me through the
entire founder mom journey.
Crystal Ware: Yep. Yep. And I think, I think for me, that's like kind of why I clung to run running. Like after I had kids, I had three kids in three and a half years [00:30:00] and I was working a corporate job on site like all day. And so it was a lot. And I felt like to keep a part of like myself, right. You needed some, I was like, I run, this is what I do.
It makes everything, feel better. and it helped the consistency of the ebbs and flows of like having babies and all the things that you have going on. and I never, I never felt guilty about that either. And I never felt guilty about going on dates with your husband. I
Rachel Sanders: Yeah.
Crystal Ware: now we're in a season and you might not quite be there.
I don't know how old your kids are, but now we're in a season where we have so much sports. It's like a day off. I just want to lay around in bed or as my kids say, which I could have guilt about, but I definitely don't. You love your books more than me. That's what I do in my downtime. I read a books and if we don't have anything going on, like y'all are free to run around, do whatever you want, but I'm going to sit here and read my book for maybe three hours.
Who knows?
Rachel Sanders: Yeah, no, we're not there yet. I have a four and a half year old and a one and a half year old. So the four and a half [00:31:00] year old has sports, but
we're still
very much in baby toddler phase with the, with the one and a half year old.
Crystal Ware: Yeah. It's so funny because, and sometimes I think my husband and I were together three years before we got married and then. You know, it was another year and a half before we had a baby. what did we do with all of our time before we had babies? And then now I've been thinking when my kids were one, two, three, four. What did we do? Because we didn't have that much, like. Things in the evenings or things on the weekends, you know, we'd go on walks, go to the coffee shop, have breakfast, whatever, and now it's just full on. And I just take it as it's a season of life, right? It's a season of life and be flexible with the things that we expect, but definitely don't have guilt.
Good for you. Well, this is amazing. I mean, what else would you want to share? You know, most of our listeners are women between 30 and 50, like what else would you want to share about the journey, about the company? About anything that you've learned so far.
Rachel Sanders: Yeah. One of the things I love [00:32:00] sharing is just a couple of tools that have worked really well for me, um, that are simple, easy, and mostly affordable. So a couple of things on nutrition side of things, even if you're sitting here saying, Hey, I don't feel stressed, I'm not stressed. Your body could be stressed because there's a lot of different physical stressors, mental stressors that's going on from nutrition.
Specifically, if you're not eating for blood sugar balance and you're constantly spiking your blood sugar which means you're eating a lot of high processed foods and or like fast food or you're eating a lot of stuff with sugar, constant blood sugar spikes. Impacts cortisol balance. And so if you're someone who's dealing with that cortisol issues, definitely look at your nutrition.
It's really helpful. Another stressor that a lot of people don't realize is a stressor is our phone and our specifically our phone use. So try not picking up your phone immediately when you wake up in the morning. The second you get on social media, the second you start looking at your photos [00:33:00] or your emails, It's likely some, there's, you're going to see something that's likely going to spike your cortisol or make you angry or evoke some sort of emotion.
And that's because media today is literally trying their hardest to evoke emotion because that's what gets you to click on it. That's what gets you to watch it. That's what gets you to stay on it and comment. That's really bad for our health, especially as it relates to like being in fight or flight mode.
Similar at night, so if you're someone who scrolls and then just immediately falls asleep, but you're having trouble sleeping, Stop looking at your phone like 30 to 40 minutes before you go to bed. I'm even someone I like working at night It's like the time where it's quiet. I'm not getting bugged I used to do emails at night and then I realized that every single time I would get on my email at night I would get some email that irritated me or that I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to do this And then like I would have those racing thoughts at night.
Wake up at 2 a. m. Have just like So I stopped doing emails [00:34:00] at night and I only focus on strategy work or stuff that I can control the environment more around my work. So that's another thing that's been really helpful. And then in terms of movement, we talked about that walking, being outside. Funny enough, research shows it's really helpful for natural stress relief.
So if you think about the days where maybe you're, you have kids and it's the summer and you're out at the beach and you're playing with them outside, like you're probably sleeping better, you're probably less irritable, you're probably feeling less stressed, try to add that more back into your life.
Like how do you get outside in the middle of the day, et cetera. And then the last piece of thought. advice that has really worked for me that a lot of women forget, especially in the season when they're dealing with little kids or just kids or sports or whatever is adults forget to play and play is incredible for our health.
It's great for our mental health. It's great for cortisol. It's great for just overall wellbeing and play can be anything from like getting lost in a book [00:35:00] to traveling to finding new experiences. To playing a sport. Like I started playing tennis again after like not playing for 10 years. I played all growing up and just finding ways to add just something back into
your life.
That's fun for the sake of being fun is really, really helpful.
Crystal Ware: Yeah, I would, I was, looking into an influencer, the other day who shared what I thought, kind of like to your last point, what I thought was incredible. And he was talking about how, yeah, it's great that I get to share what I love to do as an influencer. And I have basically turned my hobby into a job now.
And he said, if that's you. Then you need to get a new hobby because you now it is your business, right? Like you love health and wellness and now that is your business. But if that love of what you've done and you've turned it into a business, it is no longer your hobby and you need to find something that you're just doing because you simply love it because you enjoy [00:36:00] it because it brings you closer to the people around you or whatever.
And I thought, wow, that's really like, Insightful and something to share because I think a lot of people want to work in it. You know, a business is something they really, really love doing. but then you have to find something that like, you're just not always necessarily trying to monetize. and I thought that that in the world we're in with social media and influencers and business influencers, I think that's important because we can monetize a lot.
But like, what are you doing purely because you love doing it? and I think that's really, really helpful that, I mean, those are really great tips. This has been amazing, chock full. I know that people will get so much value out of this. and I just want to thank you for sharing your time today and we will have all of their websites, all the ways you can connect with Rachel and routine in the show notes.
Definitely highly recommend you follow her. You guys know I'm on LinkedIn. She's also on LinkedIn, and has [00:37:00] great business focus content there that I absolutely love. So thank you for sharing your time with me today. Thank you for bringing all this guidance to us and continued good luck to you and routine.
And, the mission you guys have out there is great.
Rachel Sanders: Thanks so much. It's really great to be here today. And then if you're interested too, and checking out the products, our websites, routine. co and we're
also available on Amazon with that free prime two day or less shipping, which I always
Crystal Ware: Yes. Got it as a working mom. Gotta love.
that.
Rachel Sanders: Exactly.