With limited access to gyms and equipment during quarantine, I've been working out at home more than ever. That was until I had an injury while running to my Peleton for my third session of the day aiming to hit 5 miles a day. A trip to the emergency room discovered I have bone spurs. Did you know you can get out of serving your country if you have them? Hmmm...I'll get back on track now.
Luckily, with workouts such as barre, yoga, and pilates, we can exercise right from our living room floors. My friend Stefanie Miller, a native of my hometown, Detroit, and Founder and CEO of Barreletics, has created the only product needed for working out at home and beyond. Today, I am catching up with the innovator who turned a water bottle sleeve into Barreletics Performance Skins, the only barre-specific footwear available.
Watch and listen to our full conversation below.
RIFF TRANSCRIPT:
Angel Gambino:
Welcome. So I don't know about you, but I started working out a lot at home during quarantine. I know some people also just started to eat and drink a lot, but I got a Peloton tread right before quarantine started and not anticipating quarantine, but you know, just wanting to improve my overall fitness level and I fell in love with the Peloton tread at the store. It was just super soft and I had no desire to get the bike, even though people love it.
Angel Gambino:
I liked the idea of having all the classes right there in the tread and to have this kind guided hikes and runs and walks, et cetera. And so during quarantine, I've used it a lot. Yay, team Peloton. And one of the frustrations over quarantine, there've been many, but getting personal gym equipment at home. I have some of the Peloton weights and I tried to get some lighter weights and they just were constantly sold out and they were sold out of every store for the longest time.
Angel Gambino:
But, then I started to switch to some of the online bootcamps and really just exercises that were easier to do at home. I live on the top of the mountain in the Bay area and so I was able to go hiking a lot, which was fantastic, but then we had the fires and so we were stuck indoors. So things like, breath work and Yoga and Pilates, and other exercises like that, even bar exercises were easier to do just even in your living room, right? But I started to do more of those exercises and it just made me question whether or not as lockdown kind of lifts, whether or not I will go back into gyms or not, but it also gave me pause to think about health and wellness overall.
Angel Gambino:
And so I know many of you are kind of in the same boat or maybe you're kind of on the other end of it and you're now like, Oh crap, I need to make up for these quarantine 19 I think they're calling it quarantine 20, I don't know. This extra weight that maybe you put on because the combination between food drink and Netflix started to tip the scales in the wrong way. But so it was part of the series I wanted to reach out to some of the people who are making our lives better in terms of our overall health and wellness.
Angel Gambino:
And one of my favorite products comes from Detroit, my hometown and from a female founder. So it just checks all sorts of boxes touch for me. And I'm not going to steal her sunshine that she's going to share with us shortly about her products. But Stefanie Miller has what I consider to be a really unique product, a product that I use, that my son uses indoors and outdoors and I just love it.
Angel Gambino:
So, without further ado, I'm going to introduce you to Stephanie Miller, to talk about her company, Barreletics, as part of our Found a Friday series. And really the aim of this series is to allow founders to share their stories so that we can support the success of their businesses and we're also doing startup Saturdays to dive deeper into some of these companies. But I think the founder story is an important one because we can all really learn from each other and especially as female founders, I feel like we need to do our best at supporting each other in terms of learning, resources, introductions, purchasing each other's products and services. And so, yeah, I'm happy to have Stefanie here to share her journey as an entrepreneur and a little bit more about Barreletics and her products today. So welcome Stefanie.
Stefanie Miller:
Hey Angel, thanks for having me and nice to see you.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Great to see you too. [crosstalk 00:04:52] I mentioned that my sister and my dad also have your product.
Stefanie Miller:
[inaudible 00:04:58] That's right, your father loves the product.
Angel Gambino:
Yes, he does, like perform yoga breaks. Yeah, so you can say hi to everyone out there 'cause we are hopefully going to help you maximize sales. [inaudible 00:05:17].
Stefanie Miller:
Hi, everyone, thanks for joining us. It's wonderful to virtually see you.
Angel Gambino:
So, Stefanie it would be great to hear a bit about your story in terms of how you came up with the idea for your products, what they are since I've just been elusive so far and your journey in becoming an entrepreneur. So yeah, please do tell us your story as a mom, as an entrepreneur, as a founder of your company and where Barreletics has come from and where it's at now.
Stefanie Miller:
Okay. All right. So basically I started doing Barre a little over three years ago. And for those of you that don't know what Barre is, it's Yoga meets Pilates, meets Ballet. So it's a kind of combination of all these three exercises and you literally work every muscle in your body. So I was doing the workout for about six months and have you wear these and I don't want to be condescending, but they heavy wear these ridiculous socks. So it's like, all these adults are working out in a studio and we're wearing socks with these grippy dots on the bottom line, essentially like a hospital sock, and I'm like, okay, this isn't working, I'm slipping, I can't like, I can't seem to hold my positions long enough to feel stronger and better in class. So the idea literally popped into my head when I was inside plank and slipping, and I came up with this, can I show the product?
Angel Gambino:
Yes, of course [inaudible 00:07:02].
Stefanie Miller:
Performance skin and it's injection molded, and I have everything. All of the products are made here in Detroit. So I, anyway, it took about I would say, after I came up with the idea, it took me about three months to find someone that could actually create it on the CAD for me and the design process took almost a year, which is insane, but we had to make sure that if I was going to invest money into the tooling, which is very expensive, it had to be correct. And you can't like cut off people's pressure points or their bunion's can't get in the way, things like that. You have to really take all of that very seriously. So in the meantime, once the idea popped into my head. That night I went home and I started researching silicone and this is sort of an interesting story.
Stefanie Miller:
I started researching silicone, buying a bunch of silicone off of Amazon thinking, Oh, I'm going to create my own little cocktail and I'm going to paint it on a wooden foot and then I'm going to peel it off and cut it up but in the meantime, I was sitting in bed, buying all this stuff and I'm drinking out of a water bottle that had a silicone sleeve. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to peel the sleeve off, and I did. I literally peeled it off, 30 minutes later after cutting it up, I put it on my foot and I went in the class the next morning and I'm like, boom, genius idea. I have to do this. So I wanted to show you.
Angel Gambino:
That is through innovation, by the way.
Stefanie Miller:
You're so crazy. I know I'm just, there's got to be something better than what's out there. And I've literally bought every hospital sock on the planet and nothing was working.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:08:52] yeah, there we go.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah. This is it right here. I mean some of the pieces have [inaudible 00:08:57] because I've taken up, [crosstalk 00:08:58].
Angel Gambino:
That's the original prototype.
Stefanie Miller:
This is the original prototype that I wore. So there's a sock inside here, so you can sort of understand it, but really this is then what I came up with.
Angel Gambino:
Oh yeah, yes.
Stefanie Miller:
Could've been interesting concepts. So, and your toes are exposed because as some of you may or may not know, when you're doing yoga, your toes, you need to be able to splay for balance. Sorry, explaining, I'm going the opposite.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
We're going off a little bit, and it's really late here. Anyway, so your toes need to be exposed for balance and that's why it has the open toe design.
Angel Gambino:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stefanie Miller:
[inaudible 00:09:45].
Angel Gambino:
And you have them in lots of different colors and for water, land, [crosstalk 00:09:55] in the future, maybe.
Stefanie Miller:
That's exactly. So basically Barre, yoga, Pilates, karate, kickboxing. My son uses them in karate. I have a ton of customers that are using them for paddle boarding, boating, kayaking. I actually just had a customer send me a picture that she bought a pair for kayaking and she loves them. So, it's great. They're impenetrable by shells and rocks. So if you end up on some rocky beach, you can actually get up and walk and not worry about cutting your feet.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
And they don't get waterlogged like the regular water shoes do. They [inaudible 00:10:36] most instantly. So they're easy to travel with. You can just throw them in your suitcase and not have them be damp and gross.
Angel Gambino:
Yep. I think I told you one of the times that I wore mine, I was on Venice beach and it was just like Bronco was surfing and I think I surf that day too and the beach is really big and that sand is so hot [crosstalk 00:11:03] oh what my God. And so when you're wearing, flip-flops, it's impossible to go really quick across the sand. So I wore them surfing and then I walked across the sand and I was like, Oh my God, this is a godsend. And then another time that I wore them where I was like, Oh my God, these are our savior was when we were in Tokyo and I mean, we were staying at the Ritz, somewhere beautiful where I'm sure it's incredibly clean and all that, but I just have this thing about like, I wanted something to wear in the shower.
Stefanie Miller:
Oh yeah.
Angel Gambino:
It just, I don't know. When I was younger, I had a planners wear, and they said that I [inaudible 00:11:48] from the soccer showers and it was so painful. And so ever since then when it comes to public showers, I'm like, I have to have like something like HiFi and I am not going through that again. So we're in like, the Ritz in Tokyo and I'm like, I have to put these on.
Stefanie Miller:
So my father wears them in showers when he's on trips.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
'Cause he gets picked up. But again, you can also use them in the swimming pool and not worrying about slipping in or around the pool. I mean, they work for all of that and great for kids as well, plus they're unisex.
Angel Gambino:
Right? Yeah. So I think you have a few slides to share today, right? To show some of the other colors that you've got and some of the other kinds of use cases. Do you want to share those now?
Stefanie Miller:
Sure I would love to.
Angel Gambino:
Okay, cool.
Stefanie Miller:
Yay. There it is. So barreletics and then the dragonflies, the logo. Dragon fly is known as the ballerina of insects, which is sort of the interesting considering that, barre is yoga meets Pilates meets ballet. So that's sort of where I came up with the logo idea. And of course you can see that's, I have seven colors right now and the blue is actually pretty popular.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. I have the blue, I love the blue.
Stefanie Miller:
That's right. You do have the blue. Yeah, they look great on you.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah, I think so too.
Stefanie Miller:
There you go, and then we use the #getagrip and also let us knock your socks off all the time, just because,
Angel Gambino:
Oh, sorry. I just think those are the best hashtags
Stefanie Miller:
[inaudible 00:13:26] represents the grippy, it's a grippy shoe. It's grippy all over and then the let's knock your socks off, refers to everyone that does buy or wears the socks. And of course we're trying to create a bit of an upheaval in the industry with this.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Because I go to a place called Stretch lab and it's basically professional stretching where certain stretches are just really hard to do on your own and so they have professional flexologists, I think they're called and kind of like a physio would do or somebody of that nature and we're supposed to wear those grippy socks and so I've started to wear my barreletics.
Stefanie Miller:
Wow. I should reach out to them. That's not a bad idea.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. That would be a good collab, I think.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah, sure.
Angel Gambino:
And did you have some other slides you want to share?
Stefanie Miller:
I think there's a few. I think I have a few more. Let's see. Okay. Well there, that's just us showing that you can use them indoor and outdoor. I do have, well, I'll show you on another slide. You'll see the difference between the two. They're very, very similar, but you have the option to go either or obviously the one on the left, the in-studio that's actually me in the front and my best friend behind me modeling. I pull on her in any time that I have a photo shoot. I'm like, I need you.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
Yes [crosstalk 00:14:59] Thanks. And then obviously the girl on the right, they're fantastic for barefoot running, running on the beach, beach volleyball. Because again, just like you said earlier, when you have flip flops on the sand, never works out. Whereas these just sort of conforms to your foot and obviously there's a lot of flexibility as well. So they're way more comfortable than a flip-flop.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah, 'cause you would not be wanting to do that position on that barre without something on your foot.
Stefanie Miller:
[inaudible 00:15:32] Here's the difference you can see obviously on the left where there are some holes in the bottom and it just allows a little bit more breathability when you're in class. Whereas you want more coverage when you're outside with the shoe on the right, which is the aquatic performance skin.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
And then these are just people actually that posted, that have worn the product. You can just see the different uses.
Angel Gambino:
And everyone's super fit. I love it. I like that performance skin.
Stefanie Miller:
It took a long time to get there. It's really funny that the name has sort of changed over time. I was super adamant early on to call them, well, the aquatic 14, and then the element 14. Element 14 on the periodic table is silicone. And because these shoes resembled silicone, I was dead send against sticking to that name. But then as time went on, I realized it was probably not the best idea. Let's just call it what it is. People don't want to think about a product. They just want to be told what and how to use it. So after many years of sticking with one idea, I finally convinced myself to go the other way.
Angel Gambino:
Well, I think a lot of us do that as entrepreneurs. We have something, it's our baby, right? And so we fall in love with it and then once we get enough feedback from the market or from, our prospective customers, then it allows us to iterate over time and then sometimes it's like, well, do I need to be stubborn about this really? I'm here to serve the customer and if this message, whether it's the copy or the brand, or even the product itself, we have to adapt to make it easier for the customer to purchase and easier for them to appreciate the value that we're offering.
Stefanie Miller:
Absolutely. It's so, and it's hard to sometimes they're veer off path, so to speak, but yeah, you do, you just have to think about the customer and it's hard when you're creating a product to do that because you are so set in your way.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. And then yeah, that laser focus is what helps you get to the stage that you've got to. So, it's a hard balance to strike sometimes.
Stefanie Miller:
It is true, so true. And these are just some of the other colors. And then obviously it's telling you that it's constructed of a proprietary polymer blend. We actually had a scientist come up with the concoction. So we own the material and the material isn't out there, it's a completely invented idea for the material as well.
Angel Gambino:
That's amazing.
Stefanie Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Because I could see potentially other products down the line right? From that material.
Stefanie Miller:
Exactly. That's, yeah. I've already, I have so many other ideas for the material.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah. And then this is just [crosstalk 00:19:00]
Angel Gambino:
[inaudible 00:19:01] in that photo?
Stefanie Miller:
Isn't that amazing? [inaudible 00:19:07] barefoot run, I mean that was a good leg position. See, that's what barre does for you. You get really,
Angel Gambino:
I can hear. Isn't it like the Ethiopian track team or as someone who trains barefoot. I can't remember who and I was like,
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah, it is, I think it's, I also want to say that in the Amazon there's [crosstalk 00:19:27] Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
So there we go.
Stefanie Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Angel Gambino:
Cool.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah. And then there's our hashtags, which is interesting too. I've actually, early on, I looked up that you can actually purchase hashtags, you can own hashtags though it's not necessary, but you can make it part of your brand, which is sort of [inaudible 00:19:51] thing idea.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Great. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of people don't know about that for sure.
Stefanie Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Angel Gambino:
And then getting people to use it is always a challenge but these ones are so suited, I like it.
Stefanie Miller:
Thank you. Yeah, and so I also designed yoga pants that's lightly padded at the knee. It's patent pending as well. I had the fabric sourced responsibly from Italy and then of course had everything made here in Detroit. They're super comfortable. They just have light padding, especially when you're doing floor exercises and yoga. Those yoga mats, they're still super thin and they're not that comfortable. And the older it get, the more uncomfortable it is. So I had this idea to design these pants.
Angel Gambino:
Like,
Stefanie Miller:
Like this.
Angel Gambino:
Like maybe one. Everyone likes to have a big butt now. You can [crosstalk 00:20:48] I need them for cycling. I don't know how people do the cycling 'cause I just like, I'm well endowed in the butt area. And so you would think that it's quite easier or more comfortable, but it's not, it's so painful.
Stefanie Miller:
I need to add the padding to the pants.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
Wearing some yeah, and my boyfriend has the underwear with the bike seat built in.
Angel Gambino:
Oh Yeah. [crosstalk 00:21:20] I was thinking of something slightly more fashionable. But yeah, I have seen those
Stefanie Miller:
Great.
Angel Gambino:
Those are the serious bikers. We are all around here in Moran.
Stefanie Miller:
That's so great. Yeah. And then this just gives you more information on the pants of course. Everybody's looking for these days four way stretch, especially when you're doing Barre, yoga pilates, you're moving in all directions and you need the material to move with you. So I found that to be a very important feature that I wanted to have in my yoga pants.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
And there we go. There's my son who's about to leap off into the pool. [crosstalk 00:22:00] with two friends. Yes, Zander. Anyway I feel more confident when he's wearing the shoes I don't have to worry about him falling or slipping.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Cool.
Stefanie Miller:
Just a little message about how I came up with the idea.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
I have this on my website as well.
Angel Gambino:
And what is your, we'll put it up, but what is your website?
Stefanie Miller:
Yes. So it's barreletics.com and it's barreletics with the CS. B A R R E L E T I C S .com.
Angel Gambino:
Great. Thank you for sharing those. So have you funded everything to date? Have you raised finance? Are you planning to, [crosstalk 00:22:50]
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I go back and forth as to what my next steps are going to be. I have self-funded so far and I do have a business partner that I brought on that has a background in the aftermarket car industry. So he helped create the tooling. So he also helped fund the project. And we're sort of at the crossroads where we're debating, if we need to go after more capital or if I'm going to continue to try to self-fund this. So I don't know, I was listening to a podcast this morning and they actually talked about founders going through this very thing. They're not sure if they need to, or if they quit, or if it's a mistake to do it, or if it would be a mistake not to do it. So I do wrestle with that.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, you want to retain as much, ownership and equity in the business as you can, but sometimes you'd need that extra capital to take the business to the next stage in terms of getting product on shelves and distribution and all of that. And so you're primarily direct to consumer right now?
Stefanie Miller:
[inaudible 00:24:10] consumer, but it's interesting. I just reached out, I'm starting to work with a barre studio and there's 50 of them across the U.S. And I basically have this one girl who is going to help me try to get into these places. And I'm doing it so they don't have to carry the product because especially since Covid, a lot of these studios, they're hurting. They don't have the financials to be able to invest in inventory. So I started this. I kind of came up with this concept. I don't know if it's like the Mary Kay concept, where you pass, they become like your Salesforce, they go out and they make money and they post and so [crosstalk 00:24:53] yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
Instead of them having carrying inventory, all they need are two codes. I'm going to give them codes and then they can start selling the inventory to their clientele, into their stores, [inaudible 00:25:07] this whole like new concept that I've come up with and we'll see what happens with it.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:25:12] really at marketing, if you can get the targeting right is,
Stefanie Miller:
Right.
Angel Gambino:
It'll be very powerful. So that would be a great network to tap into, especially when, you want to support other small business owners too.
Stefanie Miller:
Right.
Angel Gambino:
Many of them can't really pivot that business so much. Some of them have turned to online classes, which is great, but a lot of people are offering those for free. So, unless they're paid for classes, that's not a new income stream. It's just keeping the relationship with the customer going. So any new income streams I'm sure would be really helpful to a lot of these small business owners, like the yoga studio owners, et cetera.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah. And that's what I'm thinking. I think it would be a helpful helpful for me, but also very helpful and beneficial for them. [crosstalk 00:26:05].
Angel Gambino:
So there might be some people out there that have ideas and maybe during quarantine they've thought like, okay, well maybe I should just put more attention and actually focus on, maybe try one of these new ideas I've had. What kind of advice, or what would you say to people out there who haven't ever been an entrepreneur before and have ideas and are kind of contemplating developing new business ideas or new businesses.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah. So my advice would be just definitely do the research in the industry that you're about to go into and make sure that what you're creating would actually help the industry. 'Cause otherwise you're sort of chasing something that you may lose out on. I also don't want to discourage anyone because, okay, let me start over. I'm just going to say this. The best advice I can give you is don't talk to anybody about it. Just know your industry and then just do it. And then after you've actually done something with it, then start to tell people because everybody has sort of a negative, they want to talk you out of it or tell you and it can be discouraging. So, and I don't want to be that person.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah, well I think for a lot of people, it's hard for them to imagine the entrepreneur's journey, right? Because it just sounds like it's filled with a lot of risk and it is filled with a lot of risks. And so I think there's a lot of well-intentioned people out there that will discourage you from pursuing the dream, right? But I think, you rightly point out, you have to understand if there's a real market for the product, you have to understand if there are customers who are potentially interested and willing to pay and how much they're willing to pay and also how much it costs to actually get to those customers who are willing to pay. So I think you're right in terms of all the research entailed with the market opportunity. So then you can start to look at, okay, well, if it costs me X to produce, then how many customers do I have before I actually make my money back, right?
Angel Gambino:
And when do I start to make a profit and you can have, there's lots of different ways you can test consumer demand. And also, like I said, looking at all the other kind of products that are available in the market, but, that helps at least mitigate the risks involved with starting that journey. But I think you're right. I think seeking out opinions of people who are not going to directly help you answer some of those questions or build that business yeah, can sometimes be motivating for sure.
Stefanie Miller:
Right?
Angel Gambino:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Yeah. One of my businesses, I remember one of my businesses in Detroit. People told me I was absolutely nuts, I was crazy. And then a few years later they were like, how do I get in, how do I get in? And I'm like, [inaudible 00:29:34] you ain't getting in.
Stefanie Miller:
That's great too late. [crosstalk 00:29:39] Yeah, now that's awesome.
Angel Gambino:
Like crazy walking in the bank. But even beyond that it's really hard as an entrepreneur, right? And so you need people around you, you need a support network who are, even if they have criticism, the criticism is coming from a place of helping you to improve the product or helping you get to the place that you want to be with the business, as opposed to like, Oh, it's just too risky or no, or just having offhanded comments. They're not somebody who is in the wellness or fitness at all and yet they have an opinion on whether or not there's a market. So you got to be. [crosstalk 00:30:25]
Stefanie Miller:
And part of the journey is really doing everything leading up to putting together the product that you're creating. I mean, even if it is a fail, the lessons learned is, it's priceless.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of where the business is at right now, what have you got planned? You're kind of debating about, whether you're going to raise funds. What are your plans for the rest of this year and the next kind of 12 months in terms of increasing sales or new products or what do you think? Partnerships, what are you thinking for the next phase of the business?
Stefanie Miller:
Right. So as I just mentioned about reaching out to the studios.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
Because I have so much inventory, I actually have about 8,000 pair made.
Angel Gambino:
Wow.
Stefanie Miller:
So I'm stocked up, I'm ready to go. And I feel that if I can just get this core group of people to be part of my sales team,
Angel Gambino:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stefanie Miller:
that's how I'm going to move the product. Just continuing to do what I'm doing to the customer, from my website, I need to actually start getting in locations without them actually carrying the product. That makes sense. That's definitely where my focus is and that really came to me as of Thursday of last week. So I [inaudible 00:31:54] the next two months is going to be really busy with trying to get people signed on to be reps.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. So maybe some people that are watching. There might be some yoga teachers, barre teachers, studio owners who might be interested. So we will put your contact details and your social handles. And so is the best way for people to reach you via your website and maybe via Instagram?
Stefanie Miller:
Yes. So they can reach, yes. Instagram is great, Facebook, and then also stefanie@barreletics as my email stefanie@barreletics. So it would be, I'm trying to think. So Stefanie with an F. S T E F A N I E @barreletics.com. so you can reach me direct, but maybe it is just easier to go to Instagram. I don't know. Whatever you think.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah. Whatever way people want to reach you. I think being accessible to the right people is always a good thing. So we'll share that at the end. And I guess anything that you have to share with other female founders in particular, in terms of your journey, or words of encouragement for other women, other moms who are looking at starting their own businesses?
Stefanie Miller:
Yes. So, I found that just taking a certain amount of time every day for myself, even before I would jump into being a mom in the morning, jumping into working because you work random crazy hours. I mean, I found myself working 15, 18 hours a day. My son would be asleep and I would wake up at 2:30 and work from 2:30 to 5:30 in the morning, do what I have to do, jump back in the bed for an hour, an hour and a half before he would wake up for school. I mean, it was just, it gets hectic. So I found that if I get up in the morning now, I get up at like 5;30, 6:00 AM and I spent about an hour meditating on the floor with hot tea. And I think just be good to yourself, take time, clear your head, and then you can get into the focus of the day. I think that's probably one of the most important things I can offer.
Angel Gambino:
I love it. Yeah, that's for my first things in the morning, too. So first things in the morning and first things, or, sorry, last things before I go to sleep. So,
Stefanie Miller:
Good to know.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah, it's good to see how meditation is really taking off because I think, especially with the pandemic and all of the horrific events that spurred all the protests, I think people's anxiety levels, are very high. So I'm happy that more and more people are advocating meditation and people who thought that they could not ever meditate are now trying it and at least finding calmer spaces and a moment to breathe. I'm really into breath work and I think all of those things are really important, especially if you're a mom starting your own business and you're trying to do it all.
Stefanie Miller:
Yeah.
Angel Gambino:
I think that self care is really critical.
Stefanie Miller:
Definitely.
Angel Gambino:
So thank you again for your time and sharing your story. And like I said, I'm a huge fan of the product as you know, and of you.
Stefanie Miller:
Thank you.
Angel Gambino:
So I hope that there are people out there that say, hey, I want to give this product a try or, hey, I would like to be one of your affiliates. And also that there might be some people out there who could be good resources for you for the business beyond that. So thank you.
Stefanie Miller:
Thank you for the opportunity and always a pleasure seeing you.
Angel Gambino:
Yeah, likewise, can't wait to see you in person.
Stefanie Miller:
I know. I know we got to plan a trip. Are you coming here anytime soon?
Angel Gambino:
I hope so. Leah, my sister just had her baby, [crosstalk 00:36:08] yeah.
Stefanie Miller:
So wonderful.
Angel Gambino:
Baby Jordyn, a daughter, J O R D Y N. And so maybe if we're feeling safe about flying, we'll see, then we'll come home for thanksgiving, stay through my birthday and Christmas and new year. So,
Stefanie Miller:
Oh my gosh, lot of nights on the rush to the party. I can't wait. [crosstalk 00:36:34].
Angel Gambino:
Yes, we will co-create some fun.
Stefanie Miller:
Okay, can't wait.
Angel Gambino:
Cool. Okay, great to see you.
Stefanie Miller:
Great to see you have a good night.
Angel Gambino:
Thanks you too.
Stefanie Miller:
Bye.
Angel Gambino:
Bye.