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Testing your ideas against reality can be challenging. Not everything will go as planned. It’s about keeping an open mind, having a clear hypothesis and running multiple tests to see if you have enough directional evidence to keep going.
This is the How I Tested That Podcast, where David J Bland connects with entrepreneurs and innovators who had the courage to test their ideas with real people, in the market, with sometimes surprising results.
Join us as we explore the ups and downs of experimentation… together.
David J Bland (0:1.030)
Welcome to the podcast, Sylvia.
Sylvia Hall (0:2.614)
Hey, thanks David, I'm excited to be here.
David J Bland (0:4.850)
I'm so excited to have you on because you have such a fascinating background of almost like proper science and with probiotics and everything and how it interacts with people and our immune system and all this. And I thought you'd be an amazing guest to have on here to explain how will you test something like that because so many of our other episodes are about software and things like that and you're such a refreshing take on things.
I would love for you to give a background of just some of your story and then we can jump into maybe some stories about how you have tested your business.
Sylvia Hall (0:43.522)
Yeah, thank you. So I hope I don't disappoint too much. I'm not a biologist, not a chemist, not a scientist, not a doctor. I like to say that pretty loud and clear. More than anything, even though I'm now known as this mood probiotic lady, I'm known as the co-founder of Lysted Naturals, I'm known as all these things, but more than anything, I consider myself a creative problem solver. And I had found myself within a problem.
And I wasn't satisfied with the solutions that were being presented to me or that I had tried. And I felt frustrated and I felt a little angry to be honest with you. I felt like my creativity had been zapped, my sensuality, my vitality. And I just felt like there had to be a better way to feel better. And so I was looking for solutions and I had tried various vitamins and herbs and different things like that. But whenever I stumbled upon this idea of the gut brain connection,
It was like a giant light bulb that went off on the page in front of me from Kelly Brogan's book, A Mind of Your Own. And also just in my heart, like it was like that, ba-boom, ba-boom, as any good entrepreneur knows. And I will say I'm one of the lucky few that waltzed out of the womb an entrepreneur. So that means I've always been very inclined to creating solutions with products, whether that be...
your standard lemonade stand or a book sale or whatever it is. Yeah, so for me it was a problem and then a very clear idea of this could be a solution and then that's when I began testing things.
David J Bland (2:14.962)
That's amazing. So a lot to unpack there. When I think about problem solving, we often hear, if you're going to start something, start with a problem you personally experience. While I think that's good advice, you also have to make sure if it's going to be a viable thing you're going to build a business on, there are enough people with that problem. So maybe share a little bit of that, anything you're comfortable with sharing here as far as the problem and how you started to find other people that maybe also had that problem.
Sylvia Hall (2:45.080)
Yeah. So I call that a postpartum struggle. And yet these children of mine, two of them, are no longer babies. It wasn't like I had a newborn and then a two year old on the hip. It was more of a slow progression of just feeling like I wasn't getting back to feeling like my normal energetic self. And it was a feeling of agitation, irritability, and just feeling exasperated. And so for me, that struggle that felt
worse when under conditions of stress like kids crying, house messy, you know, getting buried by my life essentially. That was the feeling of like, I know I'm not alone in this. I'm doing this alone, but I know I alone do not struggle with this. felt that was like the no brainer of all no brainers. I've always had that kind of knowing like if I'm dealing with this, other people probably are too. And there probably are exceptions to that, but it felt very...
I felt very strong in my knowing that just the design for mothers of like, Hey, I want you to either choose to go to work and take your kid to have someone else take care of them or you be home with them all day, all by yourself until you lose your mind to pick one. Um, to me, those options just kind of left us strapped us mothers. And so it was a very clear knowing that the postpartum support that I needed, and I later learned it takes a woman's body 12 years to remineralize after birth.
Nobody told me that. And so it's like this clear knowing of like, people are like having babies a lot, like, you know, all these women and we probably need a little bit more support. And yet when I continued to research the gut brain connection and the specific strains that support mood, which we can get into later, it wasn't specific only to women. It was of course, men and women that could benefit from the neurotransmitter support that happens when you support that gut brain connection. Yeah. So for me,
The struggle was real and yet it was also very real that this is not just mine alone. And like I said, sharing in a bit some of the things I did to test, but also just the intuitive nudges were continually there. And I feel like as a woman, that is one of my greater assets. It's my belief that as women who can create life, we also have access to ideas in a way that, sorry, men don't. And...
Sylvia Hall (5:10.740)
using that gift, not just, you know, flaunting it to the men of the world, but instead saying, hey, I have access to a greater knowing and intuition and I'm going to use that to build my businesses. And so I think that's why women have an amazing leg up when it comes to business and entrepreneurship.
David J Bland (5:29.842)
So we have some women close to myself, and we've been dealing with gut health issues for a while.
I feel like we've tested all these different things to try to solve it, know, like diets and all these other things. And recently, it came to our attention that we migraines could be related to gut health, which I had never made that connection before, because we would watch somebody have a migraine and also have their stomach hurt. And we're thinking, well, that's kind of weird. And let's just try to treat that. And so I do think there's so much we're still trying to uncover about ourselves and how things are connected. And there's so much more to learn there. So
Kind of running with this thread, so you're personally experiencing this. You're not satisfied with the solutions that are out there. So how do you start to kind of find your way through that and test your way through that to find kind of, I mean, obviously we can fast forward to where you are today, but I'm really like to hover on how this started. So what kind of things were you starting to try and how did you finally get to something that seemed like it was working?
Sylvia Hall (6:37.974)
So I can go back real quick as far as the migraines. am someone who actually has struggled with headaches and migraines as well and the continual thread that I have found after being in this weird wellness world for so many years is there's always a connection in some way back to the gut but more importantly back to emotions and I feel like that thread of emotions which there's no capsule, no pill, no tablet, no powder. It is simply a matter of feeling and being willing to feel.
and healing to feel and all of that. So to me, that connection of health, well-being, vitality and emotions and emotional awareness is continues to be an area that I test personally. But yeah, as far as saying, okay, there's got to be a better way to feel better. Mood probiotics, it just makes sense to me. I've always kind of struggled with sluggish digestion and I've struggled with these moods up and ups and downs. And so the connection there was very clear to, you know, see.
the connection point. And so it really started with this idea of learning how probiotics are classified. And they're classified by genus, species, and strain. And strain is the most specific subtype or category, if you will, of the probiotic type. And once I understood that, I really was able to see very clearly that those specific strains were what I needed to.
hone in on. Those specific strains are what I needed to research. And so the step one of testing mood probiotics was going to the World Wide Web and narrowing in on these various strains of different bacteria. Which ones could help with calming neurotransmitters? Which ones could help to support the nervous system? Which ones could lower stress if you took them before a test? And these are all the different studies that I'm finding and just making notes of the various specific strains.
And then the step two for me personally as a very sensitive person who had already kind of discovered that yes, this is a link I've been missing. I just began testing it on myself and I was buying a lot of single strain probiotics and I would literally, and this is wild, but when it comes to testing in a very personal level, testing is simply paying attention. And so I feel like when it comes to my life, I test everything. I split test and I pay attention.
Sylvia Hall (8:56.876)
And so I feel like when someone says, how did they do it? How did they grow this business from zero to seven figures? How did they take an idea that was nothing and make it something? My top tip would have to be start paying attention, paying attention to how you feel, paying attention to that, the truth tingles that you get on the back of your arm when you're talking about a subject. And that's really what I did is I bought as many different probiotics as I could.
that were single strain or not very many strains. So for instance, our top seller mood boosting probiotic has nine different strains of probiotic bacteria. I was trying to find formulas that had one, two, three, as few as possible so that I could take it and pay attention. And then I'm taking notes and I'm researching the strains and I'm testing them myself. And to me, it became very clear that probiotics do change how I feel. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. And it's not just about if it was a good formula or a good brand. It was more about probably what my body
individually needed. So the two steps of testing that really got us started were researching the strengths and understanding the classification, self testing. I'm very sensitive, pay attention one at a time. And then finally, the third and final way I really have tested with EnLifted Naturals and our mood probiotics is to listen to customer feedback and then not tweak my formulas because once you launch something and people love it, it's not quite the right thing to do. I've learned.
You don't mess with the formula, but you do and can create new formulations. And so now at this point we have four different mood probiotics and the other three that I created after the first Big Daddy that has continued to be our top seller have been more sensitive formulations or more specific for different needs. And that generally leans into the histamine sensitivity, which is
very interesting you brought up the headaches and migraines because I've continued to find a strong connection of gut health, histamine and headaches. So those final three that we created are the ones I direct people to if they say I'm really sensitive. And then one more thing while we have sensitive people on the radar is always to go slow when you first start if you're sensitive or if it's not even about like, oh, my digestive system is sensitive, but it's more about your nervous system being sensitive and like
Sylvia Hall (11:18.398)
how you respond when you take something new is not always about how your body reacts quote unquote to the new stuff. It's actually just as much about what your mind is making it mean. And so when you can go really slow when you first start by opening the capsule, sprinkling a little tiny bit into a smoothie or drink, uh you just send that signal that hey we're safe, we're good, we're just trying a little something out, it's no problem, get ready, we're gonna just do this slow. And that slow and steady approach is very handy for sensitive people like myself.
David J Bland (11:47.974)
Wow, I was listening and try not to internalize too much while you're talking because as a kid I had, know, one of allergy tests. I've had all kinds of issues over the years and one is histamine, you know, being sensitive to histamine. hmm, makes me think. So, so you have a really successful first product you've launched and it sounds as if you, well, a couple of things here. One, I'd love to know more about that launch and two,
it sounds as if you're really listening and deeply listening to customers and you're starting to understand, oh, there are different segments we can serve with variations here that might be smaller, but still meaningful. And so maybe unpacking that, know, explain the launch, explain like the thought process around the process around that. And then eventually getting to these other segments.
Sylvia Hall (12:39.438)
Sure. So when we started off, it was about eight years ago. And I like to say that it was a beautiful opportunity or a willingness to take a risk at the right time, which is what an opportunity is because we knew we wanted to sell on Amazon. And from that initial knowing,
We had a couple of roadblocks. had this, oh, you gotta get ungated and you have to out all this paperwork and then hope it works. And it's like two or $3,000. Okay, we were brand new and this was like an idea that had already been, okay, we took a little course, we bought inventory and then now we have to get ungated. And there was no guarantees with any of this, of course, as there isn't with anything. But yeah, for this, was kind of like, oh, what should we do? We know we wanna do Amazon, but we don't know if we wanna spend this. like, of course it's laughable now of like.
to $3,000. Like, yes, that would be a good intuitive nudge to follow to pay that small fee because obviously Amazon is a beast and we're, you know, at her mercy. We just hold on for dear life. But I think a lot of our success is a willingness to take the risk, a willingness to show up and to bring it all to the table, but also just impeccable timing before that market had gotten really saturated and really
just full and wild. Additionally, I joined some other small groups who were really encouraging video launch. Eight years ago, I was making videos and I was sharing them with my personal, like social media friends, which is not really something I do anymore as I've continued to grow the company. I just prefer a little bit of privacy about not sharing it all to all the high school friends and know, soccer moms I've met along the way.
Um, so yeah, it was a combination of the right timing and putting it all out there with almost daily videos. And, um, we did launch at a lower price, knowing saying, Hey, this is the exclusive launch price, you know, get it now while it's cheap. And then we slowly incrementally raise that price. Um, and yeah, I would say like, it was a willingness to do whatever it took at that time and some luck as it always is because the timing was right.
Sylvia Hall (14:53.218)
Um, at that time, my husband was still at his job at working as an engineer and I had the goal in my mind of him being able to quit that job. And so I feel like that passion and that vision really drove me and really encouraged me like, I don't feel like making a video. Like, yeah, but I feel like being that lady who retired her husband. Don't I? Yes, I do. And so it was that like vision and mission and of course, like believing in your products.
I mean, that was like the heartbeat of it. And I think when people say like, Oh, are you like a heart centered business? Like it's like a fish in water. Like, what do you mean? Of course I wouldn't sell anything I didn't believe in wholeheartedly. Like, and when people talk like that, I just get confused because that's the only way to sell. That's the only way to, to really make an impact in the world is to, to sell something you believe in and to create solutions to problems that you're passionate about. So it's like a fish in water. Yes, of course listed as absolutely people first.
heart centered business, but also having that personal skin in the game of wanting to be able to see my husband be able to quit his job. And two years after we started Lifted, he indeed was able to retire and has been home with me growing the brand from the comfort of our home here in Kansas City.
David J Bland (16:9.778)
Quite an accomplishment. I like that you had a goal in mind. I think so many founders, maybe we skip that part of the goal. And then we also, we throw this term pivot around, the other goal will just pivot. But you can often pivot into something that your heart isn't in. And it might be a business that could be profitable, but your heart's not in it. And then it becomes a situation where this is so hard as it is. And to do something you don't believe in,
It almost makes it impossible to me. feels as if there's no, how are you going to be successful if it's not something you believe in? So I do think we have to be careful with throwing around that term around pivot a lot and don't just pivot and just find your way. also like that you coming back to your previous comment about listening to your customers, you made this comment about we can't change what's out there. So let's find solutions for them.
Sylvia Hall (16:40.493)
Yeah.
David J Bland (17:6.296)
and explain how that process goes. Are they just sending you emails and calling you? Are you going off? And I'm sure it's a bunch of different things, but how is that process of kind of internalizing what they're saying and then coming to the realization of, maybe there's another version here that's for them.
Sylvia Hall (17:23.640)
So when a customer reaches out, excuse me, I'll make a note of it or a mental note. And then when I get that similar message multiple times, that's when I really perk up because someone's saying one thing one time, it's not usually quite enough, but when there's a pattern, that pattern is very obvious. And so shortly after launching Moon Boosting Probiotic, there was a pattern of people saying, I'd love to take your probiotic, but.
I have these histamine issues and that led me to researching which strains could be included that would be histamine degrading or at least not activating. And that led us to creating bifidus mood boost, which is our probiotic and prebiotic, just like our first formula. But instead of having any lactobacillus types of bacteria, it only has bifidobacteria, which is more sensitive and less likely to be histamine producing. But then came the emails.
The email said, I love that you've got this histamine sensitive formula. It's exactly what I need, but it still has prebiotic in it. And prebiotics, oh, prebiotics really mess up my gut. Now I'm not talking about one email. I'm talking about multiple emails, numerous customers. And that's actually become something I've found more more common that people don't realize fiber is a tricky critter. Now, of course, probiotic bacteria are the live bacteria, live microorganisms. Whereas prebiotics are simply fiber.
that that probiotics can feed on and help to replenish the good bacteria simply by feeding them. But if your gut is already out of balance or giving you trouble and you put a bunch of fiber in, you're ready for a little bit more trouble because it's just not ready to take that. So these customers were very right. We needed something with just probiotics. And so from there we came out with Mood Super Strains, which is our probiotic only formula that has five or six types of bifidobacteria plus one special type of lactobacillus, which is known to help with
histamine and not cause that issue. And sitting pretty thinking, okay, we've got three. This is, I mean, this should be it, right? And then very quickly saw the missing piece. And then from there I said, this is it. No, I draw the line because I'm going to tell you what that fourth one is. But I also want to tell you this. All of the gurus are saying, don't create more of the same product. Create something else that that first person can buy so you can have a larger order value. And I was like, yeah, that's great and all, but I'm trying to help all these people feel better. Okay. So give me a second.
Sylvia Hall (19:42.060)
And so I was relentlessly committed to feeling like when someone reached out and explained some gut issues, which is something I do is help look through and say, Hey, based on what I read, I think you should start with this one. And that fourth and final necessary formula in my opinion was a spore based probiotic. And that is called SBO mood boost. And it has three types of spore based probiotic bacteria. basically spore based probiotics are really great if you have
continually tricky digestive issues and are dealing with that histamine problem. To me that's like the primo le primo route to go when the other probiotics haven't worked for you. So some people will say oh then like spore-based is better and everybody should just go straight to that. It's not necessary. Some people really do feel great on the lactobacillus or bifidobacteria. But there was enough feedback and insights from my research that the spore-based are really great
way to go if you've tested lactobacillus and bifidobacteria and just haven't gotten the desired results. Everybody's yapping about probiotics helping but they never helped me. Listen here friend you might want to try a spore-based probiotic. And so that is our fourth and final in the lineup. We have two with probiotics and prebiotics, two that are probiotic only, and then those last three are the more histamine sensitive focused formulas. What's really tricky though about that first one that I mentioned, mood boosting probiotic, it has nine strains. A couple of those could be
potentially histamine activating for some people, but there's also a couple of strains in it that are histamine degrading. So if you're not someone that has like a really strong known histamine issue, you actually could be fine with that mood boosting probiotic. It's all the other three that we've said are for the more seriously sensitive people, which like I said, I can relate to very deeply as a sensitive person myself. So from there, I said literally like no more probiotics because when you confuse, you lose.
And when you give people way too many options, they walk away. You know, there's a study in a book of how many jams and jellies there was a table with nine and then a table with 36 and the 36 they said, peace out. have no idea what jam I want. But if you just have nine, then you can easily like, okay, I've got this and I didn't want to confuse or lose my customers. So we've got four probiotics and then we do have a few other supplements that I've since added with the premise of either like, oh, I'd love to have an additional mood support with this probiotic or even, hey, you're really good at mood stuff, but I don't really want to.
Sylvia Hall (22:4.760)
take a probiotic, my digestion seems fine. And so from there we came up with magnesium complex and mood mushrooms, and then we also have a micromelatonin. So that's the lineup here at Lifted Naturals.
David J Bland (22:16.368)
Wow, that's quite the lineup. I was thinking, you know, when you think about the spores, I don't know if your average person really could understand, or at least me, understand the difference of spores. Maybe you could elaborate a bit on that.
Sylvia Hall (22:32.622)
Well, it's called an endospore and it basically has this protective case that helps it that good bacteria further get where it needs to go. It can handle more acidic environments. And by taking an endospore versus a traditional bacteria, you're really ensuring that good bacteria gets where it needs to go. This is the perfect time to talk to you though about the absolute truth of the matter, which is once again, that I'm not a scientist, not a biologist, not a chemist, not a doctor. And I don't even want to be. Literally the more I study this stuff, I'm like, I don't really...
Look, I just want to help people and like, just want to, and so the thing I found, I, you know, I mentioned being in this wacky wellness world for eight years. And the thing that I've found is that every coin has two sides. And in the health and wellness world, a lot of times we get stuck on the side of what's wrong, what hurts the symptom chasing, the disease that's causing us trouble. And the entire reason I got into this industry is actually on that other side of the coin, the health, the vitality, the energy, the creativity that the...
The pizzazz, the excitement, what am I here for? What are my gifts? How can I light up the world? And that to me is the side I want to stay on. And yes, I meet my customers where they are and I'm willing to go there. But I see again and again that we get hyper-focused on that other side of the coin. We all want to feel good and we want to see these symptoms alleviated. But in our constant pursuit of chasing that, I feel like we're missing the big picture of what we really think we will do when we feel better.
I'm here to say do it now. Do it now. And maybe you can only do it for 10 minutes before you need a nap for whatever reason, but do it now. And the more you can infuse that energy into your life, I think it's that momentum that begets more of that energy to help you really be who you want to be and show up how you want to show up. Like going back to the idea that I'm not the mood probiotic lady as much as the creative problem solver or the creative ideas gal who
loves coming up with those creative ideas. So just that reminder not to get stuck into that chasing your tail syndrome of always looking for what's wrong. Because our mind, oh my gosh, our mind, it's so wild and so good and so bad at the exact same time. It will give us trouble and it can also be such an excellent servant for us, but it's a terrible master, just like money.
Sylvia Hall (24:54.156)
I love money, I love abundance, I love creating the flow, I love having more money, because then I can give people more money. And yet when money becomes the master, we become miserable. So instead it is an excellent servant. The mind is a servant, money is a servant. And tapping into that ultimate gift of your soul essence, like that's the master baby right there and staying connected to that. That's how I created this brand. That's how I tested it. David.
David J Bland (25:21.938)
There's so much so much there. I think we have all kinds of different companies on this podcast. And one of the things is like, oh, I have to raise funds have to raise funds from an investor. And sometimes like, well, maybe just raise funds from your customer. Like if you solve their problems and help them feel better. And coming back to the problem aspect, I do think and I suffer from this too, at times where we get fixated because we're problem solvers, we get fixated on the problems.
And sometimes we miss the gains. I mean, in my system we use, we use jobs, pains and gains. And it's so easy to say, the customer has this job, the tasks they're trying to do or whatever. These are the pains getting in their way. And then if they can do this really well, here's some of the gains they get. And the gains aren't just, I solved the job or I solved a pain or mitigated the impacts of it. There's like all these other gains that we don't focus on or we don't explore that can be tangential.
You know, so often I'm dealing with businesses and we say, oh, well, this person does this well. Yeah, but they can also get peer recognition or maybe they feel better or they've, you know, got a promotion or something like there's all these different things that could happen. Not just I solved this little task or I fixed this pain. And so I do think it is a trap we fall into as problem solvers at times where we get fixated on the pains and we solve one and they're like, oh, well, there's this other pain we have to solve and this other pain and this other pain. you can see it permeate, you know, sort of how the businesses are.
Structured you can see it permeate through marketing and pricing and everything because everything is about addressing pains and You almost have to take a step back and say well, what if we if we focused on the gains what if we focused on the rewards and what if we led with that and You know focused on that aspect of it and I do think that yeah, you're right your brains do They're tricky in that sense where unfortunately we can we can just look at everything as a problem and
everything is a problem has to be solved and there's always more problems and we're always trying to solve them and we kind of miss out on the bigger picture of the joy and the rewards. I'm sure there's a bunch of other questions I can ask about the business. However, I'm really interested in what you think is coming next. So you've been doing this for at least this part for eight years. I'm assuming even before that based on our conversation, you were testing things and trying to figure out what worked even before the business. So you mentioned not confusing your customers.
David J Bland (27:42.607)
And I'm not losing them that way. So how do you continue to you know, try to create joy and try to help people? What's really getting you excited over the next, you know a couple years without? Without trying to confuse people that you're you know, you're trying to
Sylvia Hall (27:59.672)
So hearing you talk about that a bit ago as far as pains and gains and value is the word that just kept coming to me value value. You have to understand your values. And I think people get mixed up on their values of what they're chasing. And so often it's a growth focused game. Gotta grow, gotta grow, gotta grow at all costs. And as a mom and a creative, I feel like nothing.
creates more suffering and struggle than me just getting into this growth lane and forgetting about how far we've come, what we've created, enjoying the present moment, enjoying this phase of life with teenagers now. Just the appreciation for what we've created rather than this constant striving for more, more, more, more. So when it comes to lifted naturals, I really do feel pretty strongly that
if I were to stumble upon a an ingredient or a combination of ingredients that I feel very lit up like this is going to help a lot of people like that's the criteria it goes through for me it's like I'm not gonna just start just make products really like it has to have a very clear purpose and everything about our lineup generally is mood focused as you've noticed we've got the mood boosting probiotics the bifidus mood boost mood mushrooms
as our most recent launch and that was based on customer feedback. Hey, you guys gonna come out with a mushroom? You gonna come out with a mushroom? I'm gonna come out with a mushroom. And so that was like, okay, the people want a mushroom. And so we came out with a mushroom and that was the same thing as far as the research, which types of mushrooms are the most helpful for mood? And mood can have a couple of different angles, right? We can have low mood and we can have a little too high mood and a little too high mood creates problems just like a little too low mood.
And so doing that research as far as how to help with a balanced mood. Yeah, so for the future of product creation, it really has to go through that filter of, this really going to help people? Do I know exactly who it's going to help? And at this point, I don't have anything that I'm absolutely committed to creating. And just continuing to lean into that value of what I value the most is
Sylvia Hall (30:17.930)
my time freedom and that time freedom allows me to be creative and I've actually used that creativity because Lifted was built under the premise of I'm a mom, I'm a creative, I don't want to just run a business all day. Like I want everything about this business to fit through the filter of is it scalable? And I want to clarify I was self-employed before I started Lifted and my rich dad, poor dad knowledge taught me oh heck I did the wrong thing.
I'm trading time for dollars, even though I don't have a boss. I am my boss and I ain't even a good one. I'm giving myself a lot of trouble. I'm having to work and order our money. I don't make money when I sleep. This is not a business. And, and, and from that place of I want to make a real business. And of course, at the same time, I think the gut brain connection is something that really we need to lean into and, and based on how our food is sprayed and treated in our air and all these things like our gut health needs some help.
If we can get some mood, oh, mood specific strains, like I'm telling you, the light bulbs are going off. I'm learning the difference between self-employed and being a business owner. So when I built Lifted, it was under the profile, everything had to fit through the filter of is this scalable? And then something kind of funny happened. I scaled to oblivion and I'm just home all day on my laptop. I don't even have to connect with anybody if I don't want to. Well, guess what? We're humans and we're meant for connections. So plot twist, jokes on me.
Scaling to oblivion where you don't have to leave your house doesn't mean you shouldn't leave your house friends. And so as I kind of regroup at this point of the eight year mark, maybe it was the seven year itch when it started, I don't know. I really feel strongly of getting more more clarity on what do I value? If I'm chasing growth and I'm not creating it and then I start to feel like, I've failed and yet I've absolutely not failed. Like that is the trick of the mind.
What does that mean? And so I've used my time freedom to create various things. And in fact, my husband and I both split with having plenty of time. Everything within Lifted was scalable. So I created a small publishing company. He's created a small crypto type endeavor. And so we've used that scalableness of Lifted to allow us to continue to explore. Without having to pivot Lifted, we've allowed our interests to pivot.
Sylvia Hall (32:41.324)
just to keep things fresh and exciting. So that was a little bit of a tangent, but also where am I going? Heck if I know David, if you know, let me know. I'll see you there.
David J Bland (32:51.858)
No, I love the idea of, you know, putting it through filters. I think that's important. We don't know where we're not always great at that. Even me, you know, I was like, oh, I want to write about this. But then like, oh, wait, does this fit like what I'm trying to do for my customers? And sometimes it isn't. So I need to have another outlet for that. But I like this idea of pivoting on, know, a we're not going to pivot the business. This has good fit. And why pivot out of part like that? We always talk about pivots of, oh, like it's a good thing. Like we're pivoting into something that's going to work.
Sylvia Hall (33:13.646)
Yes.
David J Bland (33:20.530)
I've seen a lot of companies pivot out of things that work too. And I think we've all had this product that we loved in the past and we scratch our head and they're like, why are they making these decisions? Why are they changing this? Why are they going this way? And it's almost never good in that regard. And so I do think we create this narrative in our heads that, oh, yeah, this is kind of successful, but if pivot this way, it's going to be even more successful. And I do think we need to talk more about, hey, we have something that works.
Sylvia Hall (33:24.075)
Yes?
David J Bland (33:49.710)
Let's keep still like let's keep with the market here. I mean, yeah, we're not gonna be completely stationary But we're gonna move with the market, but we're not necessarily gonna pivot out of the market either and I do think sometimes that's not obvious when it happens and people look back and they go Wow, know five years ago I wish we sort of would have stayed there instead of trying all this other stuff just in the sake of growth And I do feel that I do see that somewhat some of my clients I just want to thank you so much like
It's such, I've learned so much in this conversation with you about, you know, gut health and probiotics and how you could take something that's very personal problem and solve for it and then find other people that also have that problem and listen to feedback and then also create things that specifically help other, you know, sets of people as well and stay true to what you're trying to do. I think that's pretty awesome. I think our listeners will get a lot out of that and some inspiration from that too.
Hey, if folks do want to reach out to you, I know you're somewhat private or they want to learn more about what you're doing, what's the best way for them to contact
Sylvia Hall (34:55.032)
Yeah, so liftednaturals.com is it. So once you go there, you'll see that you can click over and shop directly in our online shop. You can also click directly over and shop on Amazon. So a lot of small businesses don't do that. They don't just direct you over to Amazon because when you buy on Amazon, I don't actually have you as a customer. I make a sale from you. It is our products, but we don't have your contact information. We can't really nurture you and share things with you in the same way. But something I've learned through and through is that I want my customers to shop where they want to shop.
Once you got used to that Amazon Prime, that quick delivery baby, you're not gonna wanna slow down. And so you can go straight over to Amazon and shop there if you are a Prime member. But also we have that online shop and you can also find us on Walmart, their interface, walmart.com that is, their interface. Little works over here at Walmart and you're listening. Step up your game. One last thing I do wanna share is that as you were saying that I was listening and I was thinking about something I heard recently, which is that the highest frequency of all,
is not love, which many people think it is. It's actually authenticity. And so I feel like the greatest call to entrepreneurs, moms, dads, people around the world that are doing their best to live a good life, to feel better and to step into their gifts and really show up in that vitality and creativity is to further explore who am I really and why am I here? And when we can do that, when we step into our authenticity, like we create this
magnetic charge of flow and interest and we bring more of the right people to us. So if anything I would say, Live To Naturals is a call to your own inner authenticity.
David J Bland (36:31.954)
Thank Thank you so much. I really appreciate you making time out of your busy schedule to chat with us today. And I want thank you so much for your time.
Sylvia Hall (36:39.918)
Thanks, David.