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Episode 36: The Healing Power of Herbs and Ancestral Traditions with Laura Ash from Scarlet Sage and Land of Verse
3 Plays1 year ago
Laura Ash is a wellness entrepreneur. She's the CEO and founder of Land of Verse, clinical herbalist, and owner of the Scarlet Sage Herb Company, now located on Fillmore St. in San Francisco, CA.
As a child, Laura struggled with pneumonia. Western medicine always worked for her, but even after clearing her dose, she always felt like she was still in the healing. At 19, Laura suffered from pneumonia again, and this time around, Laura decided to try something different from the antibiotics. She went into a used bookstore and looked up the aromatherapy section. She came across a book by Jean Valnet, "The Practice of Aromatherapy." She looked up pneumonia and found out that there were essential oils that would help with that.
Laura went into a food store and bought lavender oil. She started having it in her water a couple of times daily, and in two weeks, her pneumonia was cured. This experience sparked an interest in herbs in Laura, and it became the beginning of a fantastic journey. In this episode, we had an incredibly insightful conversation about herbal medicine, ancestral traditions, and the challenges of running a business in the wellness industry.
Listen to learn more.
Key Talking Points of the Episode:
[01:01] Getting to know Laura Ash
[05:54] How Laura moved to San Francisco
[09:06] Laura's quest for global herbal medicine preservation
[14:11] Services and classes offered at Land of Verse
[17:58] Challenges Laura has faced as an entrepreneur
[23:28] Laura's advice to new entrepreneurs
[26:11] Laura's wellness kit
[33:41] How does Laura achieve work-life balance?
Magical Quotes from the Episode:
"Everyone has some stories and songs that they have with their tradition, whether it's through ceremony or ritual. There's always a plant associated with those."
"Don't put your own money unless you are someone born with wealth. You can play with money."
"If you have the finances to get smeone to support you in your journey, do it."
Note: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only
Resources:
Scarlet Sage
Land of Verse
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Psychic Girls Next Door.
00:00:07
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We are your hosts, Lily Hiberino and Shannon Miller.
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This podcast is for all spirituality enthusiasts and psychics next door to share tools, experiences and spiritual practices that align with your highest vibrational self.
00:00:21
Speaker
So in today's episode, we are honored to have Laura Ash.
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So Laura is a wellness entrepreneur and she's also the CEO and founder of Land Overse.
00:00:32
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clinical herbalist and owner of the Scarlet Sage Herb Company, which is now located on a few more street in San Francisco.
00:00:40
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Hi, Laura.
00:00:41
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Hi, good morning.
00:00:42
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Thank you so much for being here with us.
00:00:44
Speaker
We're so honored to have you and we're so excited to chat with you today.
Laura's Background and Journey into Herbalism
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, so if you could please tell us a little bit about your background, like where you grew up, your educational background, if you feel comfortable sharing about religion or spirituality, astrological sign, whatever you would like to share with our listeners.
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You want everything.
00:01:07
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Yeah, I do.
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Sounds good.
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I was born in Redding, California.
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So I was born in Northern California.
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And I am a, what they would call a triple Scorpio, but I actually have five planets in Scorpio.
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So my sun, moon, and rising are in Scorpio, Mercury and Uranus, and the rest of it's Libra, four planets in Libra.
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I don't know my entire chart.
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And then I think three in Sag.
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So I'm all in the 11th, 12th, and first house.
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supposedly, according to astrologers, this is my last life.
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So I'm stoked.
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It's been a long journey.
00:01:45
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You're in your season.
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I'll be in my season.
00:01:47
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This is my season.
00:01:49
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That's amazing.
00:01:50
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Yeah.
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My dad's
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a forester so I grew up in the woods in the Sierra Nevadas and I didn't have herbs in my home growing up.
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A lot of people associate herbalism when someone's doing it as a profession that they grew up with a hippie household or a very bohemian type household but I grew up in a very conservative family.
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I would say typical like lower middle class white family and
00:02:14
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In Northern California, very religious.
00:02:17
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And so me finding herbalism was really on a self-study, self-journey.
00:02:22
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And so I, like many people that look into herbalism or find it, usually have some sort of healing crisis, some sort of health issue.
00:02:31
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And I had pneumonia a lot growing up.
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The first time I had pneumonia, I was six weeks old.
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And the second time I was two years old and probably some sort of lung infection every year of my life.
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And antibiotics saved my life.
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So I love Western medicine for that reason.
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But I was 19 years old and I had pneumonia and I just didn't want to take antibiotics.
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I was old enough to make that decision myself.
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And I explored and walked around and found a used bookstore.
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This was in Chico, California, where my family had moved when I was 12.
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And I was 19 at the time.
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I walked into a used bookstore and I went into the aromatherapy section.
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I don't know why.
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I had never read anything about aromatherapy.
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And I pulled out a book called The Practice of Aromatherapy by Jean Valnet.
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It's a French medical aromatherapy book, obviously written in English.
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And I opened it and I looked up pneumonia and it brought me to a page where there was three essential oils, lavender, eucalyptus, I think pine.
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Actually, I think there was more than that.
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And I was fascinated by the fact that there were natural remedies for this.
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Why had I never heard of this before?
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It was this like aha moment.
00:03:42
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And so I looked up lavender and I read about it and I was convinced that I should try this.
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So I bought the book.
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It was $6.
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And I went to the very first natural food store I'd ever been to.
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And I bought a lavender essential oil.
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It was by Oracacia.
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It was the only essential oil brand at the time that anyone could really get other than maybe some small brands.
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And I didn't know how to take it.
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And that's in quotes.
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And so I actually put a couple drops in water and drank it for two weeks and it completely cured my pneumonia.
00:04:13
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Oh my God.
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Wow.
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It was such a big deal.
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And I think the palpable difference for me was really how I felt afterwards.
00:04:20
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When I was taking antibiotics, even though it got rid of my pneumonia, it didn't necessarily make me feel very strong or
00:04:27
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well um i felt like i still was healing from this infection but after i took lavender i
Career Development and Education in Herbal Medicine
00:04:35
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was i told people i'm like i just feel strong i feel better that is it was very different for me so i dove into the world of essential oils and read every book i could was convinced i was going to have some essential oil distillery someday maybe when i grow up i'll have something like that
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And I, through that avenue, I started doing self-study into healing with whole foods.
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And then that naturally goes into herbalism and started doing more self-work on myself.
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I ended up getting a job.
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I moved to Seattle to go to art school for professional dancing.
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I was a professional dancer growing up.
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And ended up with a job at an herbal apothecary in the Pike Place Market called Tenzing Momo, which is an old Tibetan herbal apothecary.
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I was 21 years old.
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And they only take handwritten resumes, which is very witchy of them.
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Exactly.
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And they're looking at your handwriting, to be honest.
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It was really cool because you handwrite all of these labels.
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And I ended up getting a job there.
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So my very first job in this field was when I was 21 years old.
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And I'm almost, I'll be 43 in a couple weeks.
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And so it's been a journey.
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It's been a 22-year journey.
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So that was my first job.
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And I studied under Master Herbalist there for two years.
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And then I ended up moving back to Northern California and to San Francisco when I was 23.
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You guys are going to like this because you're psychics.
00:05:59
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So I had a dream about moving back to San Francisco.
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So I used to ride motorcycles.
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And in my dream, I was riding my motorcycle over a hill and I came over this beautiful coastal hill and had all these gorgeous meadows and coastal plants, small little plants and cypress trees.
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And when I came over the hill, I saw the Golden Gate Bridge and I started crying in my dream.
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And I woke up and realized I need to move to San Francisco.
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And I had lived here from 1999, 2000, right around that Y2K time.
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That was fun.
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That's a fun time.
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We were the only city, I think, in the States that actually had a party.
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Yeah.
00:06:40
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Right.
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That was fun.
00:06:42
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So I knew I needed to move back.
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And so I moved back here and then I ended up going to herbal medicine school at the California School of Herbal Studies in 2005 and 2006 and became a clinical herbalist then and became a Western medical herbalist trained under the teachers there.
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And then through that time, I have journeyed in a lot of different directions.
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So actually 2006, and when I was at my clinical year up in Forestville, where the California School of Herbal Studies is located, I actually had a job at Scarlet Sage.
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So I was working part-time at Scarlet Sage.
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And then the following year, in 2008, I ended up co-founding an organic spa called Ava Organic Spa with a friend of mine, Tira.
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And I created all of the products and created the teas and some of the protocols there.
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And that was me venturing into the world of beauty.
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I was also running a chai tea company at the time.
00:07:34
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So as an entrepreneur, which is a disease, there are no herbs that cure it.
00:07:39
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You guys might know about this.
00:07:40
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Hello, buddy.
00:07:41
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I was always trying to find new ways to share my herbal passion with the world because for me, I was like, why is this not everywhere?
00:07:50
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This is healing people.
00:07:51
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This is traditional wisdom.
00:07:53
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Why is this not hip and sexy?
00:07:55
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It did not make sense to me.
00:07:56
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And this was, you know, almost 20 years ago.
00:07:58
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And obviously things have changed since then, but I was really interested in infusing herbalism everywhere I could go and into different communities.
00:08:07
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I ended up getting married, getting pregnant, moving, and had an experience overseas in Oxford, England, where my now ex-husband and I, my young son, were living.
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And I ended up going to northern Sweden to find my own ancestral medicine.
00:08:24
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So I had already been
Entrepreneurial Pursuits and Challenges
00:08:25
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an herbalist for many years.
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This was in 2010.
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And I connected with the Sami herbalists there.
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And the Sami are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia.
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So northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia.
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And I met with this woman named Greta Hoover, who is a traditional Sami herbalist.
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And I connected with her and I was shocked.
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She only had this small pamphlet of things written down of their traditional medicine.
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She was the only one practicing traditional medicine in her community in the Arctic Circle near Jokmok, Sweden.
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And I was so shocked.
00:09:02
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And this was the first time as...
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White girl growing up in Northern California had no idea about indigenous medicine loss, no idea about oral tradition, understood colonization in theory.
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And then seeing it within my own ancestry was, was deeply troubling to me, knowing that this was a bigger problem around the world.
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We moved to Tanzania the following year and I ended up working with a Maasai herbalist there and he asked me to help him.
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write down and record his traditional medicine because it has been unwritten.
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So MA is their traditional language and it's an unwritten language.
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So most indigenous languages are unwritten.
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And so I helped him document his traditional medicine because of my experience with Greta and the Sami people.
00:09:52
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And so when I moved back to the States, I ended up curating and putting together the book of the work that I did with Sayanga in Tanzania and then founded a nonprofit called Herbal Anthropology Project, which preserves and protects traditional medicine around the world with intellectual property protection.
00:10:08
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I did it with IP protection because I was the one who wrote down the information.
00:10:13
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It was translated from Ma to Swahili and Swahili to English.
00:10:16
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Technically, I owned it and I knew that that wasn't okay.
00:10:20
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So then I went and did research about traditional wisdom and indigenous loss.
00:10:24
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And what it was, there's a traditional knowledge division in the World Intellectual Property Organization, which is run by the UN, actually.
00:10:31
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So if you were a nonprofit, you could be accredited with this TK division.
00:10:35
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So that's why I started the nonprofit.
00:10:38
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And that's what I was going to do when I grew up.
00:10:40
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I was settled in Madison, Wisconsin.
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I had my second child and I became a single mother.
00:10:46
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And it was a very transformative time for me.
00:10:48
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So I was going into conservation, running my nonprofit.
00:10:52
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And that's what I thought I was going to do for the rest of my life.
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But life happens, as you know.
00:10:56
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So I needed to move back to San Francisco for my kids to be with their dad.
00:11:01
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And I ended up approaching Lisa and Dino, the former owners of Scarlet Sage and said, if you're ever interested in selling, I'm interested in buying because I need to move back and I need to move back in three months.
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Yeah.
00:11:12
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And they were like, we just hired a broker.
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This is the time for us to sell.
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So divine timing, divine timing.
00:11:18
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This is where, you know, you're in the flow.
00:11:19
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Yeah.
00:11:19
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Yeah.
00:11:21
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When tapping into your authenticity, like the whole journey, you have such a beautiful journey to being able to really be part of that integral experience of holding space for someone who doesn't even write their language.
00:11:37
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Like that's such a beautiful thing in itself and being able to take your experience and like pay it forward and constantly like give people opportunities for healing.
00:11:47
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Yeah.
00:11:48
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You mentioned that we are psychics.
00:11:51
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I don't think we're the only ones in this room.
00:11:53
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I think you're pretty psychic yourself because one, you had a precognitive dream and then you followed your intuition every single step of the way.
00:12:05
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That's what it sounds to me.
00:12:06
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It sounds like information came to you and you just kind of ran with it.
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Yes.
00:12:11
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That's incredible.
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I have a lot of friends who say I'm psychic, but this is the thing.
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I know I'm intuitive.
00:12:17
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And I know I get downloads, which I believe is clear cognizant.
00:12:21
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But most of my dearest, closest, bestie friends are very psychic.
00:12:27
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They can see a movie behind someone, right?
00:12:29
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They hear things, they see apparitions.
00:12:32
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They get very clear visions and I don't.
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So I respect deeply the work that psychics that have these natural gifts that are seeing spirits at a young age, which I never have.
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And I don't hear things.
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I don't see things.
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And I know things.
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And I think I'm grateful
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full actually for my Mormon upbringing because one of the things that the Mormons do is actually acknowledge the intuition, which they call the Holy Spirit.
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I love that.
00:13:01
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And so that is an, it's a really fascinating part of the church because it's all about, you can actually have a direct connection with God and with source and spirit.
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And so I think I was lucky to be brought up in that.
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And now we call it, I call it intuition.
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is this deep connection with higher self, deep connection with source.
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And
Preserving Tradition through Land of Verse
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being able to listen to that, there is a freedom and a liberation of accepting that you can listen to that.
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I grew up in a feral home.
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I wasn't, you know, I could do whatever I wanted sort of thing, even though there was very much structured around conservative life and church and religion, which I left around 19 years old.
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But I think I was always encouraged to do my own thing.
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I was always encouraged to follow a path that was interesting to me.
00:13:48
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And so I think that really served me in my career.
00:13:52
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And after buying Scarlet Sage, I was able to create that home that I needed to in San Francisco.
00:14:00
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And then my school, Landiverse, grew out of the pandemic.
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So that's the new venture that I'm working on, which is based on education at this point.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely tell us a little bit more about that.
00:14:10
Speaker
Like what types of services and classes that does Land of Verse provide?
00:14:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:14:16
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So Land of Verse came from my love for oral tradition preservation, my love for herbal medicine, and my love for fashion.
00:14:25
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Because this is where that question come in.
00:14:27
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Why isn't herbs hip and sexy?
00:14:28
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I think a lot of people associate it with dusty old apothecaries and hippies that live in the woods.
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I find that sexy.
00:14:35
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All of that's good.
00:14:36
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I'm not saying it's not good, but what it does, it hinders people to actually understand the clinical research and the efficaciousness of it all.
00:14:43
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So I think that niche has been filled.
00:14:46
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It's been filled well.
00:14:47
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It's been filled for a long time.
00:14:49
Speaker
What hasn't been filled or what is, I think, being filled at the moment and psychedelics are actually a big part of this transition is how people are connecting to plant medicine and how it's actually being used in integrative medicine with doctors.
00:15:03
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Also, just what you can use on a daily basis that actually maybe you can start with first.
00:15:09
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And so verse came with this idea that everyone has ancestry and everyone has an oral tradition and how do you find it?
00:15:16
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And that as a foundation, reducing cultural appropriation, reducing this need to find other sources of information, you actually have it in yourself.
00:15:24
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So that's where verse came in.
00:15:26
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Because verse is this idea that all oral tradition was passed down through story and song and poetry.
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And so everyone has some stories and songs that they have with their own tradition, whether it's through ceremony or ritual.
00:15:40
Speaker
There's always a plant associated with those, right?
00:15:42
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We have this in our DNA.
00:15:44
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All of us are herbalists.
00:15:46
Speaker
All of our ancestors have been.
00:15:48
Speaker
And maybe all of them were witches too.
00:15:49
Speaker
We'll see about that.
00:15:51
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And so Verse really is an herb school right now.
00:15:54
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My goal to grow it is in pre-recorded classes that people can find their ancestral traditions all over the world.
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So that's my hope for Verse.
00:16:02
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But right now we're just an online herbal medicine school.
00:16:05
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We have a three-year program that you can become a clinical herbalist.
00:16:08
Speaker
We do have...
00:16:09
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deep connections with plant spirit medicine.
00:16:11
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We just did a six week course in plant spirit medicine.
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We did one in holistic nutrition, which is still going now.
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And so we're growing and expanding based on what the needs are of our community.
00:16:21
Speaker
Right.
00:16:22
Speaker
And anyone can take those classes, right?
00:16:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:25
Speaker
Anyone can take the classes.
00:16:26
Speaker
Correct.
00:16:27
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Great.
00:16:27
Speaker
How much of a crossover do you see it bleeding into concepts like shamanism or other forms of healing modalities?
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah, because shamanism is so specific to specific traditions, we wouldn't teach that for people outside of any tradition that uses that term shamanism.
00:16:44
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But when we talk about plant spirit medicine, it does have that broader sense of what people can connect to based on their own ancestry.
00:16:52
Speaker
So as a Western European American, I'm...
00:16:58
Speaker
my connection is through maybe the Celts and the witches and all these other traditional names that I might not connect with or I might connect with really strongly.
00:17:11
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I think the reality is that traditional people didn't necessarily name themselves unless they were the healers of the community.
00:17:18
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They were just living their life
Financial and Business Strategies
00:17:19
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on a daily basis with this medicine available, with these connections to plants and ritual and ceremony.
00:17:25
Speaker
And so whether you name it or not, these deep connections exist.
00:17:29
Speaker
And so shamanism is specific to areas mostly in South America and indigenous folks there.
00:17:37
Speaker
So once again, everyone has a version of that without using that term.
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:42
Speaker
Thank you for that education.
00:17:45
Speaker
And, you know, you describe your journey so beautifully, but I'm always curious just to...
00:17:51
Speaker
Learn a little bit more about like the biggest challenges that you have faced during this being an entrepreneur.
00:17:59
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:18:02
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Great question.
00:18:04
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Great question.
00:18:05
Speaker
I think, I mean, at this point, it's financial, it's capitalism.
00:18:09
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It's all of these frameworks and systems that we're born into.
00:18:14
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And I have a big passion in supporting other female entrepreneurs, especially healers and creatives that are doing amazing work in their life's work in the business side of their passion.
00:18:26
Speaker
Often I've noticed that my friends who run amazing retreats and maybe a practice or a product line,
00:18:36
Speaker
don't have MBAs and you don't need one to run a company, but you do need a lot of financial acumen and literacy.
00:18:43
Speaker
And that's a hard thing for a lot of people who are in a radical space that they don't want to necessarily engage as much with capitalism.
00:18:50
Speaker
So for me, I find that that's a really empowering piece for me to focus on is
00:18:56
Speaker
is the world of business and the world of what's here on this planet and how we're managing our earthly experiences and our systems in place and it's really hard especially when things like misogyny exist and um you know the people that make the rules keep changing them and so for scarlet sage when we moved to the fillmore street
00:19:19
Speaker
The reason why we moved is because safety issues, high rents and shoplifting.
00:19:24
Speaker
People's cars were getting broken into right in front of the store while they were shopping.
00:19:28
Speaker
There was a shooting in front of the store.
00:19:30
Speaker
It just became an unsafe place.
00:19:34
Speaker
And the challenges that I had with the landlord were very real also.
00:19:38
Speaker
And so looking at different neighborhoods, we decided to move to the Fillmore because of the safety, but also the proximity to Japantown.
00:19:45
Speaker
Lower Fillmore, the historical areas, and then Upper Fillmore, which we know is very wealthy.
00:19:50
Speaker
And so how do we manage running a retail store, which only exists when people spend money, and our community of spiritual people, healers, and then also as practitioners running the store, how are we also serving our community to find the herbs that they need for their physical health, mental health, well-being?
00:20:07
Speaker
And so we moved over here, but it's been really hard.
00:20:10
Speaker
We moved probably at the hardest time of San Francisco.
00:20:12
Speaker
We hear brick and mortar is closing every single day and we're down 50%.
00:20:17
Speaker
We are barely making it.
00:20:18
Speaker
And so hopefully we'll survive through the holidays.
00:20:22
Speaker
And I think we will, but I have to get extremely creative to figure out how to bring in different revenue, new revenue,
00:20:31
Speaker
And just, you know, that's the hardest part.
00:20:34
Speaker
That's definitely the hardest part.
00:20:36
Speaker
And it is the reality of the majority of small businesses.
00:20:39
Speaker
So I know I'm not unique in that.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker
We hear you.
00:20:43
Speaker
So us here as a community, how can we help you?
00:20:48
Speaker
Oh, well, yeah, shop.
00:20:52
Speaker
I mean, at the end of the day, if you love what we do, support it.
00:20:55
Speaker
And if you have ideas of what you think a community needs, share them.
00:21:00
Speaker
You know, our goal is to be here as a community.
00:21:02
Speaker
I bought the store eight years ago, but I really am the steward of this space that has been around for 28 years.
00:21:08
Speaker
So I know that if we're not serving the community for what they need and where they're at, then we're not doing our job.
00:21:15
Speaker
Right.
00:21:15
Speaker
So we'll make sure to leave all the information in our show notes.
00:21:19
Speaker
Thank you.
00:21:20
Speaker
The stores, website, they can also shop online, right?
00:21:24
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:25
Speaker
And I understand what I've noticed here too, and this might resonate with some of your listeners, is that the biggest competitor is apathy, right?
00:21:33
Speaker
The change, the fact that we moved and became and got rid of old stuff and we brought in new stuff and it looks different.
00:21:40
Speaker
People don't like change.
00:21:41
Speaker
They want us to stay exactly the same, even if it wasn't working.
00:21:45
Speaker
Right.
00:21:46
Speaker
It's this idea of stability.
00:21:48
Speaker
And I know that we're working with people's spiritual lives here.
00:21:54
Speaker
So when they see us changing, it's too much for them to understand why.
00:21:59
Speaker
Because they don't run a business.
00:22:00
Speaker
They don't understand all the ins and outs.
00:22:03
Speaker
And we had people saying they wouldn't shop with us anymore because we were moving.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:08
Speaker
And this is where I think we just know that change is so hard for people.
00:22:15
Speaker
So I've learned a lot.
00:22:16
Speaker
I have plenty of failures to share, which is if you don't need to move, don't.
00:22:20
Speaker
Number one.
00:22:21
Speaker
If you have a brick and mortar out there.
00:22:23
Speaker
Moving is not fun.
00:22:24
Speaker
I would never think about that.
00:22:26
Speaker
Just moving locations.
00:22:28
Speaker
But people don't want to change habits.
00:22:30
Speaker
Especially after 28 years being in the same location.
00:22:32
Speaker
They live down the street.
00:22:33
Speaker
And it's just like a familiar spot.
00:22:35
Speaker
And they don't want the smell to change.
00:22:36
Speaker
They don't want the look to change.
00:22:38
Speaker
Thank you.
00:22:40
Speaker
But what it is goes to show to think about what the lesson is.
00:22:44
Speaker
And that for me, it's the reality of I want to be able to help other people be successful.
00:22:49
Speaker
One.
00:22:49
Speaker
But number two is that
00:22:52
Speaker
It is hard for people to come in and not feel and see the same things.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I acknowledge that.
00:22:59
Speaker
And as a Scorpio, I love change.
00:23:02
Speaker
I'm all about change.
00:23:03
Speaker
Give me something new every year and I'm happy.
00:23:06
Speaker
I have a hard time having the same life, look the same way over and over again.
00:23:10
Speaker
And thankfully I have kids.
00:23:11
Speaker
So I get a lot of fresh...
00:23:12
Speaker
stuff in my home on a daily basis.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:16
Speaker
But that's been, that's been a big aha moment for me.
00:23:20
Speaker
And I would say a lot of entrepreneurs would agree with me on that one.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:24
Speaker
And is there any advice that you will give to, you know, new entrepreneurs or people that are maybe thinking into having like opening their own retail store or diving into the world of whether it be, you know, healing or anything?
00:23:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:43
Speaker
Don't use a lot of money to start, start lean.
00:23:47
Speaker
There's this great concept of lean startups where get a concept out there, get people interested, see what people want spending without spending anything.
00:23:56
Speaker
If you're doing ads, test ads, test them cheaply.
00:23:59
Speaker
See if, see if people click on them or not.
00:24:01
Speaker
Like don't put your own money unless you are someone that was born with wealth.
00:24:05
Speaker
You can play with money.
00:24:07
Speaker
I've never had that opportunity to play with money.
00:24:10
Speaker
So learn and do it cheaply and therefore see, am I hitting the mark with the community I want to serve?
00:24:18
Speaker
Are the people that are my customers, are they actually going to buy the thing that I want?
00:24:22
Speaker
Are they interested?
00:24:24
Speaker
And that for nascent and new entrepreneurs is not necessarily talked about enough because it's like, you need this brand, spend $60,000 on this brand before people even...
00:24:35
Speaker
know what it is.
00:24:36
Speaker
Right.
00:24:36
Speaker
Like what's in it for them?
00:24:37
Speaker
Right.
00:24:38
Speaker
Get an idea, put a concept out there, get people together, find the people in your community that you think would be your customers.
00:24:45
Speaker
Ask them if they're interested in this.
00:24:47
Speaker
Ask them if they know any other brand or product or service that they're already spending money on these types of things.
00:24:52
Speaker
So that's my one advice for brand new entrepreneurs.
00:24:57
Speaker
And two, just make sure you're constantly looking at your numbers and make sure you're constantly seeing what's working and what's not.
00:25:02
Speaker
Get rid of the things that aren't.
00:25:05
Speaker
And this is where that pivot and that change and that flexibility has to come in to be successful.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, the agile
Laura's Wellness Practices and Health Insights
00:25:10
Speaker
thinking.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:11
Speaker
I work in tech, so.
00:25:12
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:25:12
Speaker
I totally understand.
00:25:14
Speaker
But it does come into play even in the spiritual realm, like being able to be flexible and be open to change.
00:25:22
Speaker
I think that's kind of where people are starting to head on a spiritual level.
00:25:27
Speaker
I feel like, you know, everyone talks about this idea of the collective, collective consciousness.
00:25:31
Speaker
I feel like people are becoming a little bit more open to
00:25:35
Speaker
change new ideas and innovation if you look at like you know from open ai's chat gpt that's innovation in the ai space but if you look at like all these different types of healing modalities it's been happening for years for lifetimes so being able to pay attention to where can we go from an innovation stance on the healing side
00:25:56
Speaker
And you're doing it.
00:25:57
Speaker
Trying.
00:25:58
Speaker
Actively doing it every day.
00:26:01
Speaker
But I would like to know, like from a personal stance, like what is in your wellness toolkit?
00:26:06
Speaker
Like what do you, you know, use every day?
00:26:08
Speaker
What are your, you know, rituals?
00:26:11
Speaker
What can you absolutely like?
00:26:13
Speaker
You need these tools to set you up for success.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's a question I get asked often.
00:26:18
Speaker
Really?
00:26:19
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:19
Speaker
So I love my green tea.
00:26:21
Speaker
Anyone that knows me loves my green tea.
00:26:22
Speaker
I have some right here.
00:26:24
Speaker
And I love my Japanese sencha that I get directly from a farm in Japan.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's actually quite cheap when you go directly to the farm.
00:26:31
Speaker
And I drink that and we know green tea is very high in antioxidants, wonderful anti-carcinogen.
00:26:38
Speaker
And people use it, actually it's traditionally used in Japan for meditation, for clarity.
00:26:42
Speaker
So actually I get often asked when people come in for herbal suggestions about clarity.
00:26:47
Speaker
And if they can drink a little caffeine, green tea is really good for that centering of the mind.
00:26:53
Speaker
There's other herbs also for that.
00:26:55
Speaker
I love chocolate.
00:26:56
Speaker
I love dark chocolate.
00:26:57
Speaker
That's definitely one of my herbs that I use daily.
00:26:59
Speaker
Very grounding.
00:27:00
Speaker
But I don't try to eat them with cane sugar.
00:27:03
Speaker
Sugar is too inflammatory for me and causes a lot of disruption.
00:27:10
Speaker
So I try to do the coconut sugar sweetened.
00:27:13
Speaker
I use a lot of adaptogens, which are herbs that help the body adapt to stress.
00:27:18
Speaker
They help you break down cortisol quickly in the body.
00:27:21
Speaker
And I use some primary and secondary adaptogens.
00:27:25
Speaker
If you're an herbalist, you know what I mean by that.
00:27:27
Speaker
And I use reishi mushroom, which is the secondary adaptogen, helps with my immune system.
00:27:32
Speaker
A lot of these are immune tonics.
00:27:34
Speaker
and stress related herbs and then astragalus, which is also an herb for the immune system.
00:27:40
Speaker
So I rarely get sick and I'm around a lot of sick people.
00:27:44
Speaker
I have kids and then I'm around people coming in all the time for immune stuff.
00:27:49
Speaker
So those I absolutely do every day.
00:27:52
Speaker
And then I take a multivitamin every day because my microbiome is nice and screwed up from all the antibiotics and assimilation.
00:28:00
Speaker
I like this rule.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's not you are what you eat, you are what you assimilate.
00:28:03
Speaker
And if you can't break it down and absorb it, then you generally need a multi.
00:28:08
Speaker
So I take a multivitamin, a food based one.
00:28:10
Speaker
I like the new chapter, the true grace.
00:28:12
Speaker
No, I'm not getting paid for this.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
And then I do take, I like shilajit, which is an Ayurvedic adaptogen, which is a fantastic herb.
00:28:24
Speaker
I say shilajit is the shit because it smells like manure and it tastes like manure, even though I've never actually tasted manure.
00:28:31
Speaker
But I've imagined this is what it would taste like.
00:28:34
Speaker
But it actually is decomposed.
00:28:37
Speaker
Paleolithic plant matter that comes out of the Himalayas and the botanical name is Asphaltum.
00:28:42
Speaker
So it's asphalt.
00:28:43
Speaker
It's this black tar that smells like compost.
00:28:48
Speaker
And you can take it, you can take it in the actual tar form, which you would mix it with water or you can, there's tablets now you can take it.
00:28:55
Speaker
And I take that.
00:28:56
Speaker
And it's very high in fulvic acid and fulvic acid actually helps our detoxification pathways work better.
00:29:02
Speaker
So I'm really involved in the daily detoxification of many people.
00:29:08
Speaker
My clients want to live a healthy life and as they're aging.
00:29:13
Speaker
And so it's really about how our body is biotransforming, what they call biotransformation and detoxification.
00:29:18
Speaker
detoxification on a daily basis.
00:29:19
Speaker
So I focus a lot on liver in my daily health.
00:29:22
Speaker
So I do the Shilajit, which helps with rebuilding the detoxification pathways.
00:29:27
Speaker
And then I do liver detox herbs every night before I go to bed and ashwagandha also to help me sleep really well.
00:29:33
Speaker
The liver rejuvenates while you're sleeping.
00:29:34
Speaker
So it's really good to rejuvenate the liver.
00:29:37
Speaker
So those are my dailies.
00:29:39
Speaker
And it seems like a lot, but it's really not.
00:29:44
Speaker
very intentional with your routine and how you are able to set yourself up so that you can show up for others.
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:51
Speaker
It's so important.
00:29:52
Speaker
It's an essential piece of my, I don't want to say daily wellbeing, but my mental wellbeing.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
I'm also I've been gluten free for 20 years.
00:30:05
Speaker
I am dairy free because I can't eat dairy.
00:30:07
Speaker
I'm egg free because it causes major disruption.
00:30:09
Speaker
So a lot of my stuff is around managing my gut health.
00:30:13
Speaker
And it's a non-negotiable for me when people like I couldn't do it.
00:30:19
Speaker
I look at them and I go, if you had my symptoms, you would.
00:30:22
Speaker
But I feel like this is the change of mindset that hopefully a lot of people can get into.
00:30:26
Speaker
I deserve to feel good.
00:30:28
Speaker
I deserve health, not deserve a pizza.
00:30:31
Speaker
When people say I deserve this donut or deserve this coffee or deserve this pizza, I'm like, I deserve to feel amazing.
00:30:38
Speaker
I deserve to wake up and feel good in my body.
00:30:41
Speaker
And that mindset shift completely changes the ability to act quickly when you need to act quickly.
00:30:48
Speaker
For me, have that clarity of thought and clarity of what direction to go.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I know when I'm off, I don't have clarity about anything.
00:30:56
Speaker
Right, because your energy is stuck and it's paying attention to different parts of your body.
00:31:00
Speaker
Correct.
00:31:01
Speaker
And your body is functioning well.
00:31:03
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm tired.
00:31:05
Speaker
I remember being tired.
00:31:06
Speaker
I was vegan for four years and God, that was the worst diet I could ever imagine.
00:31:09
Speaker
My ancestors grew up, I mean, had to eat reindeer nine months out of the year.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
So ancestral diets are really important to me and my practice.
00:31:18
Speaker
And when I was vegan, I was tired and hungry all the time.
00:31:21
Speaker
Because your body was craving.
00:31:23
Speaker
I needed protein.
00:31:24
Speaker
I needed fats.
00:31:25
Speaker
I needed, which my ancestors lived on for hundreds of thousands of years.
00:31:28
Speaker
And so when I started eating meat again, I ate salmon.
00:31:31
Speaker
My brain started vibrating.
00:31:33
Speaker
That's how I was eating.
00:31:34
Speaker
It was amazing.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
I was vegetarian for a long time.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:36
Speaker
And I started eating salmon like six years ago.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:39
Speaker
And I feel so much better.
00:31:40
Speaker
And what's your ancestral background?
00:31:42
Speaker
Norwegian and my mom's family is Irish.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:47
Speaker
So you're like root vegetables, game meats, fish, good, you know, seasonal berries and things.
00:31:54
Speaker
That's probably your jam.
00:31:55
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
And what's your ancestral heritage?
00:31:58
Speaker
Mine is Asia.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker
So you could probably be one of the only true vegetarians.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:32:03
Speaker
And that's where I am now.
00:32:04
Speaker
I follow a vegetarian diet.
00:32:06
Speaker
And then some fish thrown in there.
00:32:08
Speaker
And I grew up eating meat because I grew up in South America.
00:32:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:11
Speaker
So it was very meat heavy.
00:32:13
Speaker
And then as the years, throughout the years, I kind of started eating less and less and then went to being pescatarian, then moved on to being, becoming full on vegetarian.
00:32:22
Speaker
But I also like, I avoid eggs.
00:32:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:32:24
Speaker
And I'm also lactose intolerant.
00:32:26
Speaker
So I know also there are things that do not love my body, you know, and I don't like resonate with certain foods.
00:32:35
Speaker
I also try to pay attention to what makes my body feel good and things that have like good nutrition also.
00:32:41
Speaker
They're very nutritious and nourishing to my body.
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah, I believe that if you're Asian descent, you're one of the only people that can break down the protein in seaweed as a raw form versus when it's cooked.
00:32:51
Speaker
So it's just, it's fascinating, right?
00:32:54
Speaker
How our ancestors survived, right?
00:32:57
Speaker
The ones that survived the best were the ones that were able to get as much nutrients from the areas that they were living in, right?
00:33:02
Speaker
The ones
Leadership and Work-Life Balance
00:33:03
Speaker
that did not were obviously died off a long time ago.
00:33:06
Speaker
And just like the lazy people died off forever ago.
00:33:08
Speaker
I was like, why is our community so anxious all the time?
00:33:11
Speaker
And then I realized, oh, if you were anxious and you bound together, you survived.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, you're hypervigilant.
00:33:17
Speaker
So that's why we're all anxious.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:18
Speaker
It's just going back to you, just ready for anything.
00:33:21
Speaker
Exactly.
00:33:21
Speaker
Going back to the roots, right?
00:33:23
Speaker
I mean, which everything in life.
00:33:25
Speaker
I mean, I should look more into it.
00:33:26
Speaker
This is just so interesting.
00:33:28
Speaker
We're going to come back.
00:33:29
Speaker
It's just like, it's fascinating to me, like to learn all of this, but kind of like on that same note, you know, you want to make sure that you're taking care of your health and being, you know, available for your family and work.
00:33:43
Speaker
How do you balance all of it?
00:33:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:33:48
Speaker
I do my best.
00:33:50
Speaker
I do have my kids every other week.
00:33:52
Speaker
So that helps because I focus so much on work and I'm remarried.
00:33:58
Speaker
I have my wife and my dog at home when the kids aren't there.
00:34:03
Speaker
And so we get time together.
00:34:05
Speaker
If I need to travel, I can travel.
00:34:07
Speaker
And so I do a lot of things that I think people with kids full time in their homes would not be able to do.
00:34:13
Speaker
I do my best not to compare myself to anyone because I see people doing 10 times more than me.
00:34:18
Speaker
And that's,
00:34:19
Speaker
a terrible way to live.
00:34:21
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:34:23
Speaker
But I do have to say that I balance it all mostly because I'm an amazing team.
00:34:28
Speaker
I don't do this myself.
00:34:30
Speaker
I have...
00:34:32
Speaker
two people that work with me in verse i have eight to ten people working at scarlet sage i have contractors of teachers i have over 30 teachers that work at verse i'm not the one teaching all day long so i have to do it with others and that for me as a leader has been able to delegate and connect with people that work with me is a spiritual journey as a leader and to be able to be a good one i'm not perfect
00:34:56
Speaker
And I've grown a lot and I have so much farther to grow.
00:34:59
Speaker
But I've definitely found that I know one if you have the finances to be able to get someone to support you in your journey, do it.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
Find the right person.
00:35:08
Speaker
Find the person that, you know, is already hustling in their own life.
00:35:13
Speaker
and already doing really great work that you're impressed by.
00:35:17
Speaker
Maybe might not be your bestie, just to give a little heads up.
00:35:21
Speaker
You guys look like you're doing good, but it's not always the smartest.
00:35:24
Speaker
Oh, good.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:25
Speaker
So having that working relationship and knowing that you can rely on other people and delegate.
00:35:30
Speaker
I'm a terrible micromanager.
00:35:32
Speaker
I hate micromanaging people.
00:35:33
Speaker
So I like entrepreneurship where other people are really saying, this is what I want to do and I want to do it with you.
00:35:39
Speaker
And I'm going to show you that I can work with you and we're going to work together.
00:35:42
Speaker
That's the type of team that I'm always interested in working with.
00:35:47
Speaker
And that allows me to spend the time with my kids and my wife and spend the time on creating new ideas and new things.
00:35:55
Speaker
It's not a solo journey.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, not at all.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:58
Speaker
Wow.
00:35:58
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for just like sharing your story.
00:36:02
Speaker
This was very expensive.
00:36:04
Speaker
But where can we find you, Laura?
00:36:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:07
Speaker
So you can find scarlet sage dot com scarlet with one T and then land of verse dot com if you're looking for education and clinical medicine education.
00:36:18
Speaker
And those are the two places that you can those are the two places you can hang out and find me.
00:36:24
Speaker
Awesome.
00:36:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time and for educating us.
00:36:28
Speaker
I feel like I've learned so many different things and I'm very curious.
00:36:32
Speaker
I'm excited to dive into this space more and I'm hoping that more people will find you and also resonate with everything you said today.
00:36:41
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for tuning in.
00:36:45
Speaker
And if you like this episode, please share with your friends, forward and follow us on social media.
00:36:53
Speaker
Follow Laura also on social media as well.
00:36:55
Speaker
We'll leave all this information in the show notes and we'll see you on our next episode.
00:37:00
Speaker
It was so wonderful.
00:37:01
Speaker
Thank you both so much for having me.
00:37:04
Speaker
Thank you, Laura.
00:37:04
Speaker
Thank you.
00:37:05
Speaker
Shop at Scarlet Sage.
00:37:07
Speaker
I'm just going to throw that out there.
00:37:09
Speaker
It's beautiful.
00:37:09
Speaker
Thank you.
00:37:10
Speaker
Beautiful store.
00:37:10
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:37:11
Speaker
And a beautiful mission.
00:37:13
Speaker
Thank you.
00:37:13
Speaker
Thank you.
00:37:14
Speaker
Have a beautiful day.
00:37:15
Speaker
Thank you.