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Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife
Are you ready to make the most of your midlife years but feel like your health isn't quite where it should be? Maybe menopause has been tough on you, and you're not sure how to get back on track with your fitness, nutrition, and overall well-being.
Asking for a Friend is the podcast where midlife women get the answers they need to take control of their health and happiness. We bring in experts to answer your burning questions on fitness, wellness, and mental well-being, and share stories of women just like you who are stepping up to make this chapter of life their best yet.
Hosted by Michele Folan, a health industry veteran with 26 years of experience, coach, mom, wife, and lifelong learner, Asking for a Friend is all about empowering you to feel your best—physically and mentally. It's time to think about the next 20+ years of your life: what do you want them to look like, and what steps can you take today to make that vision a reality?
Tune in for honest conversations, expert advice, and plenty of humor as we navigate midlife together. Because this chapter? It's ours to own, and we’re not going quietly into it!
Michele Folan is a certified nutrition coach with the FASTer Way program. If you would like to work with her to help you reach your health and fitness goals, sign up here:
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan
If you have questions about her coaching program, you can email her at mfolanfasterway@gmail.com
This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife
Ep.62 A Vagipreneur and Orgasmic Leadership
The size of the sexual wellness market for 2023 is estimated to be over $37 billion. This growing industry, ripe with potential and opportunity, is more than just gadgets and apps. The business of femtech and sextech is largely driven by female entrepreneurs who, through their own experiences, have found holes in the market where there is unmet need.
Rachel Braun Scherl is a champion for women's health and is passionately focused on driving innovation in the business of women's sexual and reproductive health. She was dubbed the first Vagipreneur after she successfully started her own female health and wellness company, creating a new category in the process.
With more than 50% of the world's population being female, it's natural to see a rising interest in woman-focused technology. Bringing the conversation to the forefront is necessary to destigmatize the shame and taboo that all too often comes with the discussion of female health and pleasure.
In this episode Rachel and I discuss:
- Her long career in the health segment and getting dubbed the first Vagipreneur
- How writing a book became her calling card
- The dynamic sexual health and wellness market, recent innovation, and how far we still need to go
- Corporate America's need to get on board with retaining their most experienced workers by embracing perimenopause/menopause in the workplace
- Getting creative and scrappy to find funding for new innovation
- How she went about starting the concept of a podcast during the pandemic
- What's next for Rachel
Where to find Rachel Braun Scherl:
https://www.sparksolutionsforgrowth.com/about-rachel-braun-scherl/
Podcast https://businessofthev.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/rbscherl/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rbscherl
Her book Orgasmic Leadership is available on Amazon and other booksellers
_________________________________________
Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling run-down. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan
Have questions about Faster Way? Please email me at:
mfolanfasterway@gmail.com
After trying countless products that overpromised and underdelivered, RIMAN skincare finally gave me real, visible results—restoring my glow, firmness, and confidence in my skin at 61. RIMAN Korea's #1 Skincare Line - https://michelefolan.riman.com
*Transcripts are done with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.
**This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Asking for a Friend
Michele Folan
Rachel Braun Scherl
A Vagipreneur and Orgasmic Leadership
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, women, companies, menopause, space, business, talking, health, creating, conversation, work, sexual, j&j, called, female, great, focus, products, sexual health, hot flashes
Speaker 1 0:00
The business of female health and wellness is an area that has seen some incredible growth lately. This increase is largely driven by female entrepreneurs who, through their own experiences have found gaps or holes in the market where there is unmet need. There has been a great deal of work done in the femtech and sex tech segments in regard to sexual and reproductive health. And then of course, menopause. Companies like checkable, rosy lioness and stripes just to name a few, along with the pharmaceutical industry are all making advances in keeping the conversation going. I actually have the founder of a company called Winona, booked for a future show. The estimate for the size of the sexual wellness market is over $37 billion in the year 2023. this growing industry, ripe with potential and opportunity is more than just sex gadgets and apps sexual health education. A data gap related to female pleasure and lack of research related to women's health are some of the main reasons why sex tech startups exist and build their innovative products around bridging the gap of female sexual function and health and medicine.
Speaker 1 1:36
Health, Wellness, career, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host Michele Folan, and this is asking for a friend. Welcome to the show everyone. My guest today is a bold and savvy growth strategy consultant, marketing expert and sought after a public speaker. She was dubbed the first Va after she successfully started her own female health and wellness company creating a new category in the process. Rachel Braun Scherl is a champion for women's health and passionately focused on driving the conversation on the business of women's sexual and reproductive health. She works on FEM tech and sex tech businesses, for women from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes. Welcome to Ask him for our friend Rachel. Ron. Cheryl.
Unknown Speaker 2:43
Thank you so much. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 2:45
Oh, it's really great to be here. And I love covering this topic. I think it's a hot topic right now in women's health. But before we get started, I do want you to tell the listeners a little bit more about you where you're from school, all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 3:03
Okay, so we're going way back. Yeah, I've spent most of my career building brands and businesses going way back. I was born in Detroit, which people always laugh out because I'm very northeast and my temperament, my demeanor. People don't even believe that I was born in the Midwest. But I was raised in New Jersey, I lived lots of different places. I went to Duke undergrad, where I studied psychology and human development. And then after working for a few years, I went to Stanford Graduate School of Business where I studied general management and went to j&j Right after that, which was really interesting, because one of the themes of my career has been that I've worked with are for j&j from 1987 to 2015. And that those relationships even after those folks leave j&j are the ones that have sustained and built my business over the past many decades.
Speaker 1 3:57
You've worked with some big companies. Do you want to name a few of those besides j&j?
Speaker 2 4:03
I mean, I've done probably 150 projects for j&j. I've worked for Pfizer, Merck bear, Allergan church and Dwight Wreckit Procter companies that have a range of products in pharmaceuticals, devices, consumer products and wellness, and often work in different areas of the company, and really focus always on driving top line growth. What do you need to do or say or offer to get people to buy what you're selling? You've worked
Speaker 1 4:31
with a ton of companies that we've heard of what companies may we not be familiar with, that you've worked with?
Speaker 2 4:39
So I work with a lot of women's sexual health and wellness brands. So I look at my portfolio is anywhere between menstruation and menopause. There are hundreds of brands that are popping up all the time that you might not know the company yet, but you do know the problem they're trying to solve so it includes things like Like menstruation and includes birth control, non hormonal birth control, fertility and fertility, disease prevention, incontinence, hot flashes, the whole gamut, the problems are common, the companies might be less so but there certainly are a bunch of them that you will be hearing up. I mean, I think the ones that people hear in the space, often are Maven, because that's a unicorn and Tia, which are offering different models for delivering women's health care. But they're sprouting up, they're growing, they're being acquired. Things are really moving in this space, when I look at my feed now, compared to two years ago, and I've been in this space now for 15 years, it's kind of crazy, what you see, you would think the world is just filled all anybody is talking about as women's health.
Speaker 1 5:49
I'm curious what your motivation was for focusing on female health.
Speaker 2 5:54
It's really interesting that you say that, because what's pretty common, I'm not gonna say standard, but happens frequently in the space is that people create businesses in response to a problem that they had, and they search and they don't see a solution. So they create a business. Well, I think that makes people more passionate. I think that sometimes gets misinterpreted by investors as it's too emotional, they're too emotionally involved. But a problem that you feel really passionate about solving, I think, is one that you'll be able to solve more likely. For me, it was really just a perfect storm. When I was introduced to the product and the company, my business partner and I were introduced, it was a product that improved arousal, desire and satisfaction for women, they had clinical support, there were very few products in the space, there had been literally dozens of active pharmaceutical programs, that all disappeared, there was no language at that point, only three to 5% of Obstetricians were talking to their patients about this. So it was literally like a perfect marketing storm. And historically, I've worked in every brand, you can think of every category you can think of from the top of woman's head to the tips of her toes, take care, care to foot fungus, and everything in between. You're always looking for ways to emotionally engaged with your consumer. The good part, and it's sometimes it's a double edged sword is that intimacy, female sexuality and the complex glory that goes along with all that is quite emotionally engaging. Yes, it is. It was really just this opportunity to be part of creating a new conversation. For me, it was really a huge business opportunity, huge growth, important unmet needs, the ability to create a conversation, not a lot of availability of products that actually really solve problems at that point, and an innate comfort level with the topic.
Speaker 1 7:51
Well, you have a comfort level with the topic, but a lot of women don't. It's creating the conversation and creating a safe place for women to have the conversation.
Speaker 2 8:02
That's one of the things that people who are drawn to this space, whether they're healthcare practitioners, or investors or entrepreneurs, it's not that it becomes commonplace by No, it's not the same thing as talking about a deodorant or a soft drink. But it does become so much part of your everyday conversation that you don't weigh it down with the same emotional power being clearly we have a societal discomfort with talking about sexuality, especially with a sexuality. And we could talk for days about all the examples of the disparity between our comfort level with men's products and with women's products, and as a result their sexuality. But the truth is, it's really important, it should be basic, as one of the things that's disturbing in this space, is that, at least in the US, our sexual education system is broken. There are a subset of states that require sex ed, some of those don't even require it to be technically or scientifically accurate. We teach abstinence and more states than we teach consent. We have this ubiquity of porn, which for many people becomes de facto sex education. We have people getting information from all kinds of unvetted sources, right. And that creates a vacuum of knowledge. And there's all kinds of studies at leading organizations and leading hospitals, where the inability to identify genitals and body parts and understanding what their function is is terrifying. Oh, and
Speaker 1 9:42
listen, I have all that background in health as well. And I'm still learning. It's constant. It's constant. I'm 59 years old, and I'm learning so much just doing this podcast and doing my own research. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of being lifelong learner. have and continue to find answers, and not just be satisfied with the status quo.
Speaker 2 10:07
Luckily, there are a lot more people like you who are looking for answers. And this idea about being a lifelong learner I think is so critical. One of the major enhancements or improvements that have come about, as this category has evolved, is they used to refer to it as bikini medicine. So what was in her underwear, what was in her bra, genitals and breasts, and it seemed very, very narrow. Now, there's a much broader narrative where we talk about things that only affect women, meaning you have to have the organs to have an issue with your uterus, or with your ovaries, that affect women primarily. And that includes things like autoimmune disease, migraines. And then the third one is things that affect women differently, which is heart disease, COVID, and lots of other things. And I think Heart disease is the one that we talk about the most. And I think that's created a much, much broader conversation. So that's number one. Number two, again, one of the positive impacts of the conversations that we had during COVID. And the increased focus on health is this idea that you can't talk about sexual health without talking about mental health, you can't talk about cardiac health without talking about bone health. Even more recently, when you hear the whole discussion about menopause, for the first time, people are saying menopause is having a financial impact on families. So part of the reason it's a constant effort to learn is because it is so complex, there are so many physiological systems that are involved and emotional lifestyle and contextual. And one of the things when you talk about just narrow that even to a very complex idea of female sexual response, the way it's currently defined, the most accepted model right now is that female sexual response is an intersection of physiological, psychological, emotional behavior, contextual social elements at work. When people say it's just in her head, yes, it is in her head, but it's not only in her head, those systems are all connected, and they are less so physiologically, when you look at male sexual response,
Speaker 1 12:17
you brought up menopause and menopause is finally getting press and attention in particularly from the corporate world. We're getting there, right. But it's still sad to me that a woman would have to quit her job, because their symptoms are so bad, and they aren't getting the proper care to manage their symptoms. And I
Speaker 2 12:41
think it starts even earlier, I think there are 34 symptoms, whatever number you believe, but at least 34 symptoms of menopause. And one of the biggest challenges is not knowing that the symptoms are related to menopause. I don't think the model is people sitting around saying, Wow, I'm in menopause, this is really unbearable. But they start to have symptoms, whether it's hot flashes, and embarrassing moments when you're presenting at a meeting. Or it's sleeplessness caused by hot flashes. So you don't feel like you're on your A game or increased anxiety, or brain fog. I think women start to experience those things. And only now do we have a construct to put those symptoms together and start to talk about them in the context of menopause. I believe that where we are with menopause is where we were with fertility and family planning and egg freezing 25 years ago, it was in my mind, an economic decision that drove companies desire to offer those benefits. They were seeing some of their best and brightest leave and not come back because of we can talk about all societal reasons why it's hard to work when you have young children. At any point if you're the primary caregiver and breadwinner, I think that with this growing awareness, that's what we're starting to see. Why would you want to lose this part of your workforce that in theory has so much wisdom, so much experience, so much intellectual capital to offer? I'm okay if it's driven by economics, because sometimes that's the way to get people to act. I'm not naive enough to believe that this is because we're all raising our hands and running into the street saying it's time to do right by women. I think it's much more and this happens. And this is how a great change happens when people realize that they're losing talent and it's costing them money, in productivity in Lost workdays in turnover in recruiting costs. You know, one of the other things that's happened, and part of this is driven by many of the startups in the space is that you're connecting the cost of care to things beyond what it costs to go to the emergency room and what it costs to see a doctor. There's so many other facets and facts that go along with the cost of what that looks like.
Speaker 1 14:56
What have you seen change in the last 10 years in In regard to the focus on women's sexual health and wellness, I mean, what still needs to happen?
Speaker 2 15:06
Well, that's such a big question. And there's so much that has changed and so much that still needs to happen. One of the talks that I give is called in a hot flash, women's health and overnight sensation, centuries in the making, what we've seen over the last 10, or 15 years, is really a confluence of factors. We see more women with money, who have capital to invest and make their lives better. We see more celebrities talking about this about women's health, especially as they get older, we see more businesses carrying about this, as we were talking about a couple of minutes ago, we know that women are the primary decision makers and often called the Chief Medical Officer. There's economic and social and societal and financial factors that are all coming for us to have this moment. It wasn't as if someone woke up and said, Wow, menopause is important. 1.1 billion women will be in menopause and 2025. And yet, once a week, if not more, we're in a position of describing how big this opportunity is. And it's not just in menopause, there are many, many other things. I also think there was some benefit or moving forward during COVID. And let me clarify what I mean. During COVID, when people were locked down, we started having conversations that we didn't have before you start hearing people talking about sex toys and self pleasure. Take the city of New York, their guidance during COVID Was your your safest sex partner. Never in the history of, Ah, forget about New York. But I think the United States has the city come out with that kind of guidance. And we started having these conversations and people are concerned about not only COVID, but other things that are sexually transmitted. All those things. And I think the other piece during COVID, we saw that women fared much better during COVID. And there was a lot of research around that. And I mean, physically from a desk per 1000 perspective, cynical or not, I think when it's affecting men and greater percentages, there is more attention. Yeah. And women are also now really putting their money where their mouth is even the biggest female focus funds are small compared to the average VC fund. But there are tons of angels, there tons of women who are at stages of their career where they've built networks, we know that women get less than 2% of the venture capital. And depending on the number you believe they control somewhere in the teens, in terms of the percentage of decision makers of venture capital funds, I think the whole model has turned upside down. But it's really like most things in women's health. It's a confluence of factors. It's not a linear equation. When you talk about women's health.
Speaker 1 17:56
I interviewed Patti Post recently, and I think I even told her to reach out to you because I thought you too, would be a great connection. But she's a female founder and entrepreneur, in the home testing and sexual wellness space. She had to get very creative as it relates to getting funding. I was curious what you were seeing in regard to women focused health companies getting attention that they deserve from banking, and from investment bankers.
Speaker 2 18:27
It's a long haul, the first thing someone told me when I started raising money and building a business, it wasn't for the faint of heart, I think that's true, I think it takes twice as long and is 10 times as hard and 100 times more draining than you anticipate. But I do think there are many more options for women in terms of capital. Besides a bank, besides what we call institutional investors or venture capital. There are Angel networks, they're individual folks that are family offices, there are people who are affiliated with different universities where they want to invest back in people who are connected to the school either as parents of students or former students themselves. And there are funds that are now specifically focused on investing in diverse founders that often includes women, but doesn't only include women, the whole diversity and inclusion effort, has also in a positive way catalyzed these alternative sources. I work with companies all day who are looking to raise money, and there are some that just don't fit the model for what venture capitalists are looking for. It's a waste of their time to go that route. And it becomes a chicken and egg. You need to have some proof of principle. Well, how do I do that without money? Well, I would have proof of principle if I had money, and if I had money, you know, become circular, right? People do have to be creative, and they Bootstrap and they take out loans and they max out their credit cards and they do all kinds of things. You have to be creative and And I'm not aware of an entrepreneur that I've ever known or worked with, who didn't have day days, months, whatever the time period is, where you weren't sure you were going to be able to keep the light bills on and pay your employees. It's really, really hard work. And what you point out is, it's constant hard work. Running a business of any kind is difficult. When you add in women's health at the majority of female founders who get less money, who are talking about things that lots of people aren't comfortable with, it becomes more challenging. What is positive is that historically, women ask for less money, and run as more discipline stewards of capital when it comes to taking investment dollars. And that model right now is particularly appealing to investors, especially those who invested at Crazy valuations that they might never see the light of day are realize any return on their capital with some of those investments.
Speaker 1 20:58
That's super interesting. I did not know that. Wow.
Speaker 2 21:02
There's also a huge amount of public policy and health policy interest in women's health. You know, when you look at the cost of fertility, or any cancer, not just to women, but to the population, there are really focused efforts. Fertility isn't singular to women, they're people of all different backgrounds and sexual orientations and genders are trying to start families. So if you look at the range, it's no longer male, female, penetrative intercourse. And it's no longer just IVF. There's surrogacy, there's a greater focus on adoption. There's all kinds of different vehicles, to building a family, which has a huge societal cost. To the extent we figure out how to streamline that and get smarter. I'm not saying that it's something we should cut the cost out of. I mean, that's how we move forward as a society as we procreate, and we create new generations. But even if you just look at the range of families, and the range of options, part of that is driven by an increasing awareness on the part of public health, who said, This is not business as usual, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore. And this is going to require a much broader look at how we think about these issues, and how we fund these issues, and how importantly, we fund research for these issues.
Speaker 1 22:31
You wrote a book called orgasmic leadership. And I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about the book, and your journey to actually becoming an author on top of everything else that she
Speaker 2 22:45
I've always liked her right. And during the course of my career, I've always done a lot of writing. There are a lot of great stories that come from being in women's sexual health, especially when you do it when you have young kids and their friend's parents are coming up to you and revealing their deepest, darkest sexual secrets in front of your children. It just lends itself to comedy. People said, I think you have a story. I found a publisher, and read reviews from indie books, who helped me shape all this knowledge and experience and one on one interviews and client work that I had done to shape a book that was really around how do people build businesses in this space by capitalizing on existing business trends? I'll take a very simple example. The period Panti did not exist in the way it does. Now, historically, people had panties that they wore during their period because they were already ruined. But the idea of period panties as a collection device that was a result of material technology advancements, right, and the ability to create fabric that could absorb at that level. That's technology, the ability to customize what size tampons you wanted in your box, and what combination of products that wasn't available at that level of specificity on a shelf. But with E commerce, and the ability to customize and personalize, we were able to order a lot more of what we wanted. Really the book I interviewed over three dozen academics, entrepreneurs, investors, healthcare practitioners, about what they were doing and seeing to build their businesses in the context of what was going on in the world. I met amazing, amazing people. Hopefully it's better smart than lucky. But the majority of the companies that I profiled six years later are still in business and growing and making changes and our leaders in the space. I'd say it's a very expensive, time consuming business card. So it wasn't as if I necessarily knew more after I wrote the book, but packaged in that way. It gives you credibility and then that led to more speaking and it became somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1 25:04
Oh, that's really neat. A lot of people do just the opposite. They write the book later, but it was your calling card.
Speaker 2 25:13
For me, I never fantasized about being a full time speaker or an author. For me. What makes that interesting is the work that I do that informs that learning. And one of the other pieces that I mentioned is I started doing a tremendous amount of speaking in my first business in this space, because we faced a business issue, which is we went to 100 outlets, media outlets, online, cable network, radio, and 95 said no. We said, well, if we can't find media, we're going to earn it, we turned it into a business strategy around creating a conversation around the disparity between men and women's advertising, which still exists. And you build on that the disparity of access to capital and build on that the disparity and access to advertising channels, doing that work. And having those conversations really started putting me out there as a way to grow our business by talking about some of these issues that historically hadn't been talked about. There isn't a company that I'm aware of that at some point in this space hasn't faced one of those hurdles still. Right. When we were talking in the New York Times in 2010, about how 95% of the outlets rejected our advertising? Yes, in 2023, we're still seeing the same thing.
Speaker 1 26:33
With women making 80% of the health care decisions for their families, wouldn't you think we would see improvements there,
Speaker 2 26:43
I think you're seeing movement, I would hazard a guess. And there are a lot of factors that this movement towards natural for better for you or organic or not using words that are so weighted, but this healthy baby healthy environment, I think is driven by Gen Z's and lots of moms. I think that the ability to have this information, whether it's through your Fitbit or your baby monitor, or your Apple Watch, you have more information to make informed decisions, people are becoming more conscientious capitalists, and they're making decisions based on a broader set of choices. But until sort of the financial power structure is changed a little bit. That's only one part of the push.
Speaker 1 27:31
Okay, you all sell Rachael have a podcast called business of the V. And you do this with Dr. Elissa DUAC, which cracks me up because I had her as a guest on my show, as well. And I was wondering if you just tell the audience just a little bit about what you're discussing on your platform.
Speaker 2 27:50
I absolutely will just in the way of brief background during COVID when no one was having meetings, I said, Well, I'm just going to interview people in the space. Women's Health folks are smart, they're creative, they're dynamic. they're problem solvers. They think about things. And if these folks can't give advice to me, and hopefully I could impart some advice as well, then who could? And I wound up interviewing 110 people about what was happening in women's health? And I was thinking, wow, it's pretty easy to get people to talk. And I thought I should really monetize this. And then Dr. Dweck, who I got to know because we were on similar panels and had similar meetings, and have a lot a lot of mutual respect and affection for one another. She called me and she says, Do you want to do a podcast? So it was almost serendipitous. We spent a lot of time crafting the real estate that we wanted to talk about. And it really is about the intersection of patient care, unmet needs questions she's getting in her office, and the businesses being created to respond to them. We're never just talking about a solution. We're talking about. Is there a medical basis? Is there a mental health basis? Is there a multi set of multi system issues that are creating this problem? And what are some of the solutions? We don't promote solutions. We try not to promote solutions as much as we try to make people aware of the options that are out there for the different stages and what I would call the complete range of their sexual reproductive health. We cover a lot of menopause. We cover a lot of fertility and infertility. We cover a lot of digital health. We cover a lot of new models for delivering care. For me one of the things that makes it so exciting is knowing Alisa and having had the chance to be on a panel with her and do close to 90 episodes is she has a way of imparting medical information that makes it palatable and understandable. And as we're hearing all this about women being ghastly I did. And it's taking seven to 10 years to get a diagnosis because the pains in your head high particularly value, how Elissa breaks down the information in a way that people can hear and understand it, and they're not being talked down to, they're being spoken to, and in a conversation with, one of our key objectives for the podcast, was really to make it accessible. We wanted people not have to invest a day of their life to listen to this, we wanted them to be getting interesting information from new companies they might not be knowing about, we wanted them to have a better understanding of some of the things that they were experiencing, when they might not know what they were called, or even what was creating the environment for those symptoms. It's been really, really, really wonderful. We both love the process of finding the guests and interviewing the guests and doing the editing and really having conversations and the best part is the response we get from listeners?
Speaker 1 31:02
Well, again, you're making it comfortable for people to have the discussion. And I think that is what's so incredibly important for women right now is that they have to know it's okay to ask these questions of their health care providers so that they are getting answers and not just living with the status quo.
Speaker 2 31:23
Yeah, I'm the number of women who say I had no idea I was in menopause. Doesn't matter how educated you are, how many advanced degrees, you have the overwhelming sentiment that people who enter menopause are saying, I didn't know this was menopause, I felt so alone, I felt it was just me. So there is a big community aspect to this, but it has to be supported by education and solutions.
Speaker 1 31:46
You have your finger on the pulse of so many things happening in this space. What gets you really excited what is on the horizon that just says, Oh, my gosh, this is so great. I would
Speaker 2 32:04
say just the growing conversation and awareness that there are better ways to do things, that we can be building better companies that are providing better solutions, that women have more access to capital and understand the financial power they have, that we're starting to see every day when I see a company gets investment, even ones that I don't know or work with. I feel like that's another step forward. Every time a company in the space gets sold. It's another step forward every time we see a medical breakthrough. People have different views about this, but celebrities are playing an active role in creating the conversation. Whether or not you choose to get medical advice from them is a different story. But it is not incidental that Oprah is now talking about menopause. And that Gwyneth Paltrow is talking about menopause and that Tracee Ellis Ross is talking about menopause,
Unknown Speaker 32:56
Drew Barrymore All of that helps
Speaker 2 32:59
as many challenges and hurdles as there are, every day, there's something that makes me feel like we're getting there. I meet people like you who I didn't know who are in their own lane, figuring out how to make this better. And I'm really inspired by those conversations and the network of people who are attracted to this space. And I would say of everything. That's what continues to energize me.
Unknown Speaker 33:24
That's awesome. I love that, I have to ask you, what's next for you what else you got on your plate,
Speaker 2 33:30
more of the same, which is not boring in my particular case. So I'm serving on boards of directors and boards of advisers, and I'm still working with companies. And my sweet spot is really between the venture backed company and the potential corporate or strategic partner finding connective tissue, so that companies that are speaking to similar audiences and might have complementary offerings can come together. So I really, like I think partnership and its broadest definition is really going to be the wave and we're seeing that already.
Speaker 1 34:04
Rachel, where can listeners find you and your book orgasmic leadership?
Speaker 2 34:12
You google orgasmic leadership? I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that comes up. It's available on Amazon. The podcast is business of the V it's available wherever you get podcasts. If you look up my name Rachel Braun, Cheryl or vadra printer, you will find me and my company that I do this work from is spark solutions for growth, which is strategic consultancy really focused on business growth. I'm available. I love hearing from people. I love having new conversations in the space. I'm speaking to young entrepreneurs every day who are trying to figure out how to tame this wild wild west that we're in. I'm pretty easy to find. Badger printer orgasmic leadership. Rachel Braun Cheryl, this is the V You'll get to me
Speaker 1 35:01
talk about a lot of channels that contact you. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put all of that in the show notes so that people will have that at hand. This was very fun conversation. Rachel, I am so glad you agreed to be a guest on the show. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 35:16
Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. Congratulations on what you're doing and what you're accomplishing. And I really was delighted you make it very easy to talk I love talking about this and I love talking about with people who are interested in it, and who have their own energy and goals are trying to achieve in this space.
Unknown Speaker 35:33
Thank you so much, Rachel.
Speaker 1 35:42
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai