Adonica Shaw - Wingwomen

If there's something that's keeping you up at night that you feel you should pursue, give yourself a year to figure it out, give yourself a year to try it, explore it, to be curious about it, to put it on paper and think about all of the ways you can bring

it to life.

So our featured speaker today is the founder of Wingwoman Inc., a patient advocate, preeclampsia survivor, MIT Harvard Medical Health Care Innovation Boot Camp alumna, and a devoted parent. Hedonica, it's a pleasure to have you with us today. Thanks so much for making time.

Thanks for having me, and I'm just excited to connect with more of you in the greater Boot Camps community.

110%.

Yeah, feel free to kick us off wherever you would like to, and I'm sure we'll have plenty of questions for you. Okay. Okay, so

where to start? Thank you so much for the introduction. Just to give more color and context to my background, I actually came to become a founder in a really nontraditional route, despite the fact that my company is a women's health tech startup. So I actually did my undergrad in journalism and I got my career started as a weatherwoman. And so after doing that for a while, I eventually came off air and I did with what most people do who come off of TV, which was pivot into the wonderful world of PR and communications.

and so that's really been my wheelhouse for the last 13 -14 years but maybe five years now with the birth of my third child I ran into a really unique health experience that changed everything for me and so I don't know how many of you familiar with the condition preeclampsia but it disproportionately impacts women of color and impacts roughly five to eight percent of the population and so when I was 31 honestly I had never heard of it but at around 34 weeks pregnant I swelled up kind of like the Michelin Man and I started just feeling really lethargic and just really sick and went into the emergency room and was told I was diagnosed with preeclampsia and that I needed to deliver pretty much immediately in order to bring down my blood pressure and to save my son. So I did go ahead and deliver and usually they say you know by doing so that's really what resolves the preeclampsia but unfortunately for me it didn't and within a few days postpartum I experienced a code blue eclamptic crisis. So spoiler alert I lived but in the time period after this life event my health, physical health, spiritual health, mental health just really took a hit. I really had to rehabilitate myself and seek out different medical professionals, peers, other people that had experienced preeclampsia in order for me to regain my confidence and strength in so many ways, right? And on the other side of that, when I was finally more in a position to speak fairly publicly about my experience, I became a patient advocate with the Preeclampsia Foundation and really started to develop Wing women. The idea is that whether you are going through preeclampsia or not, you know, people that are experiencing or navigating really unique health events need a level of peer support. You know, certainly I had never heard of preeclampsia when I was diagnosed with it, and the journey of getting better was difficult, but difficult until I found people who understood where I was coming from and could understand symptoms and could understand what the process of healing looked like and so I thought to myself what could I create that lessened the time of somebody or a family going through something really unique as it relates to maternal health, reproductive health, fertility to finding a solution that really works for them where they feel supported and so wing women was really born out of this need to have wing women or wing people not in the dating sense that are by your side to help you navigate they're there to be your champion they're there to listen when you don't want to tell your family what's happening with your body right

that's really where this concept evolved from and so now five years departed actually this upcoming week will be five years departed from that life event because my son turns five on Monday, I have been able to not only launch this but to build a lot of support around it. In fact, when I did my video application for the MIT Harvard Medical Boot Camp, it was a lot of what I spoke to and the need to have something like this in market and how far I had gotten. Right Right now, we have already done a beta test last April, and I'm currently in a program with NASDAQ, which is their Milestone Makers program. I was accepted into that shortly after I came out of the MIT Harvard boot camp. Right now, we're just bringing users onto the platform, and I'm out speaking and talking a lot about our mission. We are for -profit Delaware C -Corp, just so I'm clear,

but very heavily focused on mission around women's reproductive health and mental health and being able to provide a level of wraparound support for people navigating that journey.

And I love how you explain, like, the origin story of Wing Woman. Sometimes I feel like I need a stick over the head because it didn't, like, dawn on me. It makes so much sense. I love that.

Yeah, I think it's funny, because when I first started telling people, they're like, like a wingman. And I'm like, yeah, but not to date. Because you, you always hear about a wingman when you're out in like a bar or a restaurant. It's like, oh, you want to tap that person and get their number or it's like, how do I get connected to such and such kind of thing, but usually in a romantic sense. And so that's not where I was going with it, but more in a sense of really having unique connected peer support from people who have lived experiences as well as those who are professionals and licensed and credentialed professionals as well.

Sure. That makes total sense. And I mean, we were already talking about how you have a superhero name. And then when you said you were a weather woman, I was like, well, that's a great weather woman name too.

But it's clear that you're really passionate about supporting people. And I was wondering, what made you decide to approach this problem from the angle of advocacy?

Honestly, the lived experience component.

And what's really interesting about

it is that even prior to having the company, I had sat on a public health board in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had already been doing a lot of advocacy work and service work, but for things that had never touched me personally. And so with this, it wasn't like I was out doing a pitch for money or for dollars around

statistics and facts and information that I could find on a one pager online. It was information that I had personally experienced, but then even by participating in different panels and talking to different women who had had lived experiences with postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, the impact to their mental health, the things that sprang out of lack of care. So, for example, when people were not receiving treatment, you know, what then happens if they don't receive that support and they're more prone to fall into addictions and other various life experiences that are very difficult to navigate, particularly on your own and can become even harder to do if the health concerns aren't addressed at some point. And so by backing into it from an advocacy angle, it not only allowed me to say, I actually can attest to these statistics. But when I'm in a room of people, I'm not just there to sell them on why they should support or why they should recommend us to have peers join our network and our platform. It's really from a place of, I mean, I've been there, and I was fortunate enough to come out on the other end. And even if you don't support me, even if I don't take a check,

even if you're not going to be in my round of funding, right, I still want to help whoever it is that's in your sphere that could use this service, you know? And so, for me, it was very, very heart -centered and heart -focused and will continue to be. I know that's not going to be everybody's story that works with us and for us, but it was a decision that I made a lot from lived experience and then again just hearing these very intense and intimate conversations from women who had overcome what I would have considered years ago the unthinkable, you know, and so just knowing that they needed really unique care and support became the driving force for what this needed to be.

Thank you so much, Donika.

And I am astounded with the work that you're doing because especially reproductive health is such a new subject and people are not used to discussing it and talking about it openly. And there's this stigma, I say, that millions of women face in the process of saying, hey, I'm suffering this medical condition that is associated to my pregnancy journey. And there wasn't this support network that could actually provide this space for you to discuss with others, because there's, it's double suffering, you are suffering the physical effect of what it's affecting you and then you're also suffering the social effects of either doctors not recognizing it or peers in your network not recognizing how and why is it affecting you. So my question is oriented to can you help us understand any biases and pressures that you had to work during your entrepreneurial journey?

Oh yes I think definitely in the social component. As somebody who's been semi -known, but professionally known, that made it difficult to even want to seek care and support and to connect with people. I think that in part contributed to the length of time that it took me to find a circle of individuals that understood because you don't know what the professional repercussions are going to be,

like you mentioned, talking about reproductive health, even though we know there are these things that live below the surface of day -to -day life and it's not just, oh, women have a menstrual cycle and then when they're ready to get pregnant, they get pregnant. People think about it as this very cut and dry, like,

oh,

she's got a

period, then she doesn't have a period, then she's pregnant, then

she has a baby, and then they lived happily ever after. That just wasn't my story. And so I didn't, I didn't want to risk losing my career, you know, and interestingly enough, it wasn't until I started to speak about what was going on that I saved my career, that I started to save myself, that I was in a position to save other women. And so I think a of this really needed to happen because there are so many women I run into and they've had similar experiences maybe not with preeclampsia but with IVF for example couples that are going through that process that don't have anybody else to talk to how emotional and how emotionally draining it can be particularly for families that are going through multiple times that might not be something you want to talk to your co -workers about and quite frankly not even something you would want to even disclose to your family because then they kind of see your trials. But having other couples that have been through the experience that aren't likely to re -share your details,

your health data online, I think certainly has its own benefit. And so for me, it was really working through that social part. And then aside from that, even confronting my own stigmas around what does health look like? What does physical, mental, spiritual stability look like? Is it the ability just to get up in the morning and you know kind of plug through the day and just say I did it one more day or is it the ability to feel good in your body, feel confident about yourself, feel confident about your journey, be able to articulate with confidence how you feel and bring other people into that journey with you. Like the stigmatized part of it really challenged me and it made me shift my own personal beliefs around what I felt health was. And so in doing that again through patient advocacy and finding these support networks and working with different doctors and

participating on panels. That process and that health journey even through the recovery period of it helped me challenge and shift those perceptions and so it wasn't easy. Like I said I'm five years removed from this at this point but even five years out of your life to deal with stigma or the emotions around stigma for something you're personally going through is a significant amount of time so I'm not gonna act like it's it's something brief but those would be the ways in which I had to challenge myself in order to get to where we are now personally and then again with the business.

I appreciate you kind of taking us through that because honestly I think it's it's powerful that you're taking your personal experience and putting it out they're kind of as part of the branding of the business you've created I think it's a brave and a vulnerable move that I greatly respect and even though it's quite different I can relate but like my weight loss is not something that carried the same sort of stigma and even at that when people say certain things I can definitely find some triggers within myself. So I was just wondering for you

how do you separate yourself your personal journey from your brand?

So that's been a trick. That's been a very unique journey just as a founder that I had to learn separately and for that I actually worked with an executive coach Because to your earlier point, yes, a portion of my story is part of the origin story of the business, but it's not the only reason why the business is alive and why it should exist. And so for me, I think one of the things I had to do, particularly with the executive coach, and I actually have one now that I was assigned to the program with NASDAQ, was to determine what part of my story are relevant to the company that can display strong founder product fit, founder market fit. What part of my story is relevant to get people to act and how do I want people to feel as the result of hearing my story? Do I want them to invest? Do I want them to sign up? Do I want them to refer? And so to a certain extent, it's yes, it's a part of the origin story, but it's retold and articulated in such a way that it is meant to move people to action. It is meant to move people to understand why there needs to be support networks, particularly around reproductive health. and so initially it was just oh you know I experience this let's have a business but that isn't marketable and I don't suggest anybody that is starting a for -profit company just put your entire life story out there I did have to work with different executive coaches to figure out what the actual story is how it was intended to make people feel and how it ultimately benefited the network I don't know if you guys are familiar with the origin story around patients like me, but it's on their website, I won't get too far into it. But similarly, the family that founded it had a relative that was suffering from ALS and so that is part of the unique background of the story, but that network draws in people from all over the world who are dealing with, on a daily basis, managing rare diseases and different conditions.

And yes, it's a part of the story, but it's done in such a way and articulated with such a way that we're creating movement and momentum around it, if that makes sense.

Thank you so much, Adonica. And I realized that by looking at your LinkedIn profile, that you're a person who believes in continuing to educate yourself and this has definitely had a role in how you have developed your business. So can you talk about how you decided becoming a certified integrative health coach and some of the other educational opportunities you've chosen have shaped your approach and your work?

Absolutely, I think honestly the boot camp with the MIT Harvard medical boot camp really helped open my eyes to a few things. So starting out in this particular journey I entered into it, oh I'm a patient with lived experience, but with the development of any business you have to be able to understand multiple sides of it and particularly in technology or tech enabled solutions you can't just back into it from the patient perspective because eventually you're going to have to figure out who the payer is going to be who's paying for this how do you tell a story of a company or structure a company in such a way that this industry understands it how do you structure the momentum of the company and build a network of potential supporters brand enthusiasts around your your company from their perspective like what's in it for them. And so even though I started as a patient advocate, I learned fairly quickly that just coming in purely as a patient and a patient advocate with lived experience wasn't enough to bring healthcare plans to the table,

to bring physicians to the table, mental health professionals to the table. I actually needed to work on myself in my own background so that I could clearly articulate what our value proposition was, but then also really build that consensus and camaraderie around what we were doing. And so I started with the Certification through Patient Advocacy with the Proclamsia Foundation, which set me up to go out and participate on different panels and speak about my experience, share my story, interact with different researchers around my lived experience and what I was building. From there, I participated in the Wharton Growth Acceleration Program. I did that one like right before the MIT Harvard program and quite frankly, I didn't even know I was gonna get in To the MIT boot camp, but I did that one over the summer and the last week of the Wharton program Overlapped with the first week of the MIT Harvard boot camp. And so it's a crazy week in the midst of this the

certification through IIN which is the certification I believe you just referenced that I just finished to become an integrated health coach or integrative health coach was taking place as well. Again from the perspective of if I'm a patient advocate yes I can speak to my experience but building consensus means being able to communicate in a way that other people they're able to consume easily as well.

Doing

the

MIT

program, connecting with doctors from all over the world, seeing perspectives, really understanding the stigma around reproductive health from doctors in Italy, Spain, Australia,

versus my experience as a black woman from LA. These things really had to be shaped. And the more experience I was able to put on my plate, and the more education, I was able to make those connections with people and tell the story in a way that they understood and the way that they could see a benefit from engaging with us far more clearly. And so I participated in that MIT program, or the MIT program, which we all did, before going into the NASDAQ program and then now maybe, oh wow, it's been three weeks.

I started my most recent healthcare leadership program at Duke. I received a full scholarship from Dignity Health to pursue that additional certification. And so again, I think a lot of this was driven around my ability to not only just have a company, it was really to build consensus and to have a really strong academic understanding of how to manage users on a platform, of course, as a business owner, but how do we talk about patient care? How do you fund a wellness tech startup? Who's paying for it?

Who has a vested interest in it having a positive outcome? And so all of those things considered, I think the continuing education was necessary in terms of building the company, but again, really being able to bring multiple stakeholders to the table.

I appreciate you explaining it that way because I hadn't thought of it as in terms of building consensus, but healthcare is one of those fields where you really need to have that. And I also appreciate that you want to make sure that everything is science -based, that you can come back to that.

Yes, absolutely. Because again, just having, because I want to make sure that I'm articulating this as delicately as possible.

Having the lived experience is wonderful. And I think it's something that for me was a driving force. but the experience without the education and then trying to build an enterprise, the three E's, would be harder without that consensus and without the hard and fast statistics data and shared information and shared education throughout that process for me. So definitely needed to have all three of those things in order for us to do where we're at now.

Yeah, that's exciting, seeing how recently you started and seeing your growth. Going back to Andrea's question, I was wondering if there was anything that prompted your interest specifically in attending the MIT Bootcamp program, and if you personally or professionally found any of the tools from the disciplined entrepreneurship framework particularly useful to you.

So

that program in particular, who

wouldn't

want to be

in a program with

MIT Harvard Medical, for me, I think the really unique value proposition was the ability to connect with people all over the world. Again, I'm from Southern California, and even though I am educated and have a network, I when you're talking about health care, there are so many, so many, so many perspectives in the way that care is approached, in the way that treatment occurs, in a way that adherence occurs. And so this program in particular was not only structured around innovative, so outside of the box thinking, people who are willing to stick their toe in the water for new and, I had to say, unvalidated solutions, but you know people who are willing to question the way things are and naturally willing to say okay well maybe there should be a solution so I thought that was a draw and then in terms of connecting with different people around the world particularly around health I just felt that it would help me give more color and context to the business and so instead of me just thinking oh all health care should be treated this way because of my personal experience it was no I need to talk to different doctors and different healthcare professionals from around the world to figure out what is their experience, what does it look like through their lens, what are the trends of patients that come into their office so that I can create a product that makes sense for women around the world.

I think obviously when you start a business, again, you start for your own reasons but then as you grow it has to be focused on the user. What do the users want? what is beneficial to the user, what is important to the stakeholders, i .e. doctors, US -based or not. And so that proposition of innovators, people willing to try new things and the ability to pull in different opinions, different educational and professional experiences into a program was just completely valuable. I don't want to like make anybody like start itching but the part of the program that really really has saved me is a PMR. That process of digging for information, validating it, and then if you don't get the desired outcome going back and then finding new individuals to interview. So if you have a thesis around, oh, this particular feature on my platform or my product should do this. I expect it to do that. But then you go and you talk to patients, you go and talk to people, and they're like, actually in the real world, we don't need that. We actually need this.

That PMR, that experience of coming up with a thesis, finding individuals to try to validate your thesis, getting feedback and them saying, oh no it's not technically like that, sending you back to the drawing board to redevelop what you already had has been really beneficial because again it separates me as founder from something that's really driven around user experience, but then also what is most beneficial to the people that are on the platform. So I'd say that was by far the part of the program that really has saved me and being able to do it more systematically from a very objective lens has been a way that we've been able to grow the business and then identify the correct stakeholders and the correct solutions for us far more easily.

Thank so much, Donika. And I think it's fascinating all the work that you have been doing by articulating the journey of women's health and specifically reproductive health. So I wanted to ask you if you could talk to us about the evolution you have seen in women's healthcare over the course of your lifetime and tell us what evolution would you like to see happen next?

Well, I don't know that I can speak to the evolution of women's health for all. I can speak to how I've seen it and how I've experienced it and how it's changed for me over time. And growing up, I came from a family that didn't actually have continuous health care my entire life. So shaping a little bit of my perspectives around health as a child, I hate to say put it on the back burner put health on the back burner for me there was no conversation I remember having with anybody in my immediate family around this is the way your body works like I remember maybe in sixth grade where we all kind of have and I don't know I shouldn't assume but if you're in the US there's usually something our class or a series of classes you get when you're like 11, 12 -ish, you know, which would be 5th, 6th grade here, um, around reproductive health. Like that's how you learn about your period. And so if your parent decides that they want to tell you more about it than they do, but if not, like that's the way that you kind of learn about how a period works. And every 28 days, this thing is going to happen with your body. And so it's not really intimate. There's no that there's no flowery conversation around and you are responsible for bringing life into the world like that. No There's no conversation Beyond that and so if you don't get it at home and I didn't That's all you grow up really knowing about your body that and maybe a couple of classes on The food pyramid and how to put food on your plate when you're maybe a little younger, but aside from that there wasn't a lot of conversation in my household around your health or how to preserve it. There were no, I don't come from a family of doctors, physicians, there was nobody else in the family advocating for eating salad, exercising, you know, yes we were athletes but there was just no real consensus or conversation on an ongoing basis around the importance of your body and how to treat it and how to treat it as you age. And so even going into college, I came in with this very, very small view of why it was important to take care of my body. And then in college, I ran into different people from around the world, around the country, that were suddenly saying things I had never heard of. And running into, for myself specifically, running into other people of color that actually grew up going to the doctor regularly, whose parents had actually taken them to get pap smears and go to the gynecologist as early as 15 -16, whereas in my household, which was somewhat religious, it was just unheard of. And so getting in college, I'm like, Oh, wait a minute, other people do this differently.

Hello all, Spencer here. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be a part of this great conversation with Adonica, but I did want to ask you, our listeners, if you could give us a review in your podcasting platform of choice, we don't have ads and don't have sponsors, but we are looking to grow. So if you feel we bring value to your listening experience, please drop us a review when you can. Thanks so much.

Wait a minute. You guys actually your parents put you on birth control your parents took you and had conversation with you About this, you know around that time my thinking around reproductive health expanded because all of a sudden I was hearing things that I didn't even know other people did and then coming out of college and then entering into a professional fear whether it's whether women and Throughout my 20s. I had given TED talks and again just fairly active in my career running into different professionals who were speaking about meditation, yoga, wellness, just other approaches to taking care of your body that again from where I came from I had never even considered and then when I had this really unique health event at the beginning of my 30s it was like well and I had to do this part with a couple of friends over time like well Donika you know when you experience preeclampsia and you didn't know what it was how did that force you to look at how you're how you've been taking care of your body and how you considered women's health and your health growing up and then I had to take some hard I didn't take a hard look at some things that I really hadn't really considered like oh you know there really are conversations around women's health unless your family decides to purposefully or intentionally instill that into you that I just didn't get and so I had to be compassionate with myself in the rehabilitory stage process of getting my health back on track and so now being in the line of work that I'm in and being eager looking for the solutions looking for the conversations looking for the information that I didn't get as a child and that I really just wasn't exposed to early in life, you know, has made the difference for the platform and it has sped the platform up exponentially.

And so just in my lifetime, I think going from a place of, again, not really having any real information around health and maybe getting a couple of classes in school to going all the way into a field and obviously with the positioning as a patient advocate, but gaining expertise from different professionals and people who have had different experiences and different professional experiences has been life -changing to say the least. So I hope that answers your question. Again, I don't feel comfortable speaking on what it has looked like for everybody over time but for me it started off very very very small and has become very very very expanded in this last six to seven years of my journey.

Well I appreciate I appreciate you some boundaries on your answer it's totally just from your your viewpoint so yeah very well answered. Honestly I really appreciate you kind of sharing some of your experience growing up because you were really tugging at my heartstrings with that. I'm really passionate about helping kids get education in health and wellness a lot earlier because I I grew up in a similar similar sounding household in some ways. Oh really? Yeah on the East Coast so we could talk about that later. You

just never know how other

of people came about information or knowledge in their own households, so that's very cool. And yes, we can totally talk about it offline.

Yeah, 100%, and you're actually getting more support on the questions and discussion channel that a lot of other people are relating to your story. So there's a question on here from Andrew that I'm gonna read aloud. How has the new reality of life after the global pandemic impacted your work and mission? How has it changed, if at all? What are you doing now to adopt this new way of working?

I think, honestly, a lot of the work around discussing things that are taboo and stigmatized has become easier because of the pandemic. You think about it, three, four years old, pre -pandemic, which was, you know, three, four years ago, having open conversations around mental health for people who are experiencing preeclampsia, postpartum depression, women who are navigating PCOS, endometriosis,

they just weren't regular everyday conversations. In fact, a lot of it in the go -to -market part is like educating people around what it is. So the great thing about the pandemic is that I think it revealed to people the state of their own health and wellness and mental health and wellness in that it has made it easier now for a product like this to enter into the market because people are already of the mindset that, oh, you know, over this last year or so, I've started to take better care of myself. Or, um, they'd seen where they had holes in care and holes in where they could be stronger, I suppose. So, um, the pandemic has contributed to the business in that sense, and that it is revealed a lot to people personally. So they are more receptive to something like this. in terms of how it has influenced the product. I whereas before I could have done this as an in -person business model where it's a membership and we get together once a month and we talk about various issues around women's health and women's reproductive health. It now having the ability to operate online and in the future, you know, possibly be able to offer or services, like that is something that has come out of the pandemic that might not have been easily or as easily navigated pre -pandemic as it is now. It's an option, right?

And so, whereas before, particularly around something that is highly stigmatized and only face -to -face, the pandemic has given us more ways to approach these types of concerns, but in a digital environment. I will say, just as a side note for anybody who might be building something similar, the attorneys and the work that they have to do behind the scenes to create these products, because again, a lot of this work was done offline pre -pandemic. I would say even their work has shifted into looking for precedent around how do you build in a digital environment, which that which only really only previously existed face -to -face has been interesting. And I think just as a business owner, the types of questions that I have to pose to them to get the product built and working with different healthcare regulatory specialists and lawyers who understand how to build and how to approach it legally has, I would say, probably been a driving factor in where we're at, and had we started building before the pandemic, I'd probably be able to give you even more examples, but I would know even at this juncture, at this point, even some of those conversations that I have with them, they usually start with, so we want to do this, but it hasn't really been done online in this way, how do we do it legally based off of other businesses that have done it successfully? And then they have to go and they have to spend time obviously researching solutions and looking through other ways that businesses have been built this way from a legal standpoint, that is. Yeah, I would say pandemic has definitely shifted things a lot for us. But all in all, I think it made it easier for us to talk about something that's highly stigmatized and bring a product into a market for people, whereas before I don't think the point of entry would have been quite what it is today and the opportunity wouldn't be quite as large as what it is today. I hope that answers the question.

Thank you so much, Adonica. I wanted to ask you, because you've been telling us about your journey, what has been your most rewarding takeaway so far?

I know.

Sorry, I'm on camera. I know if you guys hear me. I'm let me just sit back for a second and think of that. I would say, honestly, it's the point of validation. I think for any, I'm going to make a general statement here, but I think a really significant part in a patient's journey, whether they're building a company or not, is the moment of validation. And I would say, for me, having, you know, both the experience as a founder, but then also as somebody who could have been a user on the other side of this, whether or not I built it, the rewarding part is getting somebody or even talking to somebody about this solution that makes them feel seen, heard, validated, understood. because it's such a lonely journey and you end up even sometimes watering it down just to find somebody that can kind of understand what you're going through but the real rewarding part for me is being able to work in this space and connect with other people where I don't have to water the conversations down I can just say what it is and they're like oh my god me too that happened to me too let's be friends, you know. And so the rewarding part of it, I think, is really that point of we both have a shared experience or this product would have helped with your experience when you went through it. And being able to build consensus around that feeling of validation and being uniquely understood by a solution from a company, of course,

but just just as a person like as a founder it means a lot to me when I run into people and I talk to them about what we're doing or they've heard about it and they're like where were you when I was going through this like those moments mean the most to me.

That's a fantastic answer not that there's a wrong answer at all but I really appreciate I appreciate that you took a moment to think about that because I personally feel a lot more comfortable being on this side of it. Just because like these are some some deep questions but I really appreciate that you're sharing so much with us. Yeah. Because

you are

such a thoughtful person I'd really like to ask you how you find balance in your life between the things that you're really personally and professionally passionate about and then having a family, having a life outside of all of your opportunities to give. I

know this is going to sound cliche but honestly radical self -care. Radical and when I say radical I mean it is scheduled, budgeted, accounted for a month in advance. I already know at least a month in advance I'm gonna go to the spa three days next month. Every Saturday morning with the exception of this Saturday morning like I usually go down to Newport Beach which is in Orange County and I run the three miles I meditate heavily hour and a half a day I go to the gym for at least two and a half hours a day I could be better with the journaling it could be a lot better with it it's something that I sneak in there I put things on my calendar that are immovable that allow me to spend time with friends and family unplugged That is a huge difference in how I'm able to operate now than several years ago. I never took that time for myself. I never budgeted it.

I was constantly missing birthdays and weddings and big events with people that I really cared about. And this experience has taught me, like, you know, if your health goes, the only thing you really have left are your memories, are the people that you've impacted and touched. It really forced me to take account of what's important and how to preserve that. And for me at this stage, it is unapologetically taking care of myself. So I will at times even say, oh, I can't do that interview or re -propose an option for meeting with somebody or dealing with them or attending an event or participating in whatever I'm being asked to do if it conflicts with what I already had set aside on my schedule. Because without that self -care boundary, it just doesn't, it doesn't help me thrive. It help me show up as a founder and as an entrepreneur. And I really have to do that

and have hard boundaries around it to maintain strong mental acuity, sharpness, ability to make decisions. Like when that self -care balance is thrown off, it impacts me personally and I just don't even play with that anymore. So radical, unapologetic self -care is how I'm able to do this. The

answer that you gave is so perfect because I think

it

is about just being responsible with ourselves because we can give what we give to ourselves as well. And what we put out there in the world depends on our mental health or physical health, how we feel, how we engage with the world is deeply tied to our self -care and our grounding into our lives. So it's just so wonderful to hear it from you and so refreshing because it's really validating for me as a woman, but also I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it's difficult to go and say, I need to take care of myself because there's this grind culture that it's about like, Oh, let's be 20 for seven on the grind because otherwise things are not going to work, but when you actually take time and take a step back and realize, okay, the grind is not the most effective way to get things moving forward, whereas radical and brave self -care is going to help me give the best of me, it's just so fantastic to hear it. Um, so I would like to ask you one final question, which is what words of wisdom do you want to leave with us today?

From the perspective of a founder, I would say if there's something that's keeping you up at night that you feel you should pursue, give yourself a year to figure it out. Give yourself a year to try it. Explore it. To be curious about it. To put it on paper and think about all of the ways you can bring it to life. I would say that that is so important. So whether or not it becomes anything, I think it gets you thinking about what solutions can work, get your brain moving, helps you put together the pieces of something that actually could become something or a different product in the future so that would be a piece of advice number one if there's something that's keeping you up at night you you got it for a reason use it explore it challenge what you think you know about it look at it from all angles get the additional education you know even if it's intimidating like just just try give it a year and see how your life changes as a person I would say you know

I think a lot of what we end up doing in business or taking interest in in business, in some way, shape or another is often influenced by things that have happened in our lives, things that we've benefited from or not. And so I would just say in terms of a piece of advice to be self -aware enough to know what those are. and if you happen to have experienced something or experience something in the future which is a really really positive thing or shows up really negatively in your experience it could be used positively if you're willing to do the work I mean I never thought that I would take something is intense and highly stigmatized as maternal health and create something really beautiful and impactful out of it. But because I was self -aware enough to go through the health journey on my own and be my own champion and have those self -care days and get into the programs, I'm now in a position to help other women and other families on that journey too. so you just never know I just again I think a lot of what ends up happening in business for some of us really does spring out of some of our most wonderful and our even some of our darkest moments and so just as a person I would encourage you to know what those are and not be afraid to explore them you know you can transmute anything negative and and bring something to life that really really helps other people

yeah beautifully articulated yeah we're definitely gonna have to connect offline and actually that leads me to the question how would you like people to connect with you if they'd like to learn more about what you do or just connect with you personally?

Sure so I'm you guys can find me on LinkedIn it's just my name Adonica Shah there's not a whole lot of Adonica Shahs running around you should be able to find me fairly easily. I

know I loved I love that you had no numbers after your name that was That's

And then in terms of the company, you can check us out online at my wing women, which is pluralized.

So we women e m e n at the end .com and see what we're building. I going to be putting out some feelers in the next few weeks around the next crop of individuals that we need to bring into the business. And so if you happen to see something that we post and either you personally or you know somebody person that would be really good fit, don't feel weird about reaching out like I want to hear from you. I want to know more and it's really exciting again to be a part of this community and any way I can be of service and be in service to all of you guys, I'm happy to do and just really looking forward to all of the collaboration that's going to come out of this conversation to start but then opportunities to connect moving forward.

100 % and please keep us posted as you are looking for people because we'd love to support you in that and maybe connect you to some people. So thank you so much, Adonica. We really appreciate your thoughts and everything you've shared with us and taught us today. Andrea and I and the team behind Founders Voyage feel really fortunate to be part of this community with you and for the opportunity to bring you this cooperative learning experience.

And if you would like to support this becoming a podcast, you can donate through our Patreon. Thanks again, everybody, and have a great day and evening ahead.

Thanks, everybody. What'd you say? Oh, thanks, everybody.

Have a great day, everyone.

Bye -bye.

You've just finished another episode of Founder's Voyage, the podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. The team at Founder's Voyage wants to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope you enjoyed your time with us, and if so, please share this with someone else who might enjoy this podcast. You can also support us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and by donating to our Patreon. Outdoor music today is Something for Nothing by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.