How to harness your hormones at work with Roxy & Margo Marrone, eyeam co-founders

CIPD research shows that 67% of UK working women aged between 40 and 60 with menopausal symptoms had experienced a negative impact on their work, with 79% reporting feeling less able to concentrate at work. Clearly, hormones play a large role in the lives of female founders of all ages. 

I wanted to hear from a team with great experience in helping people overcome hormonal imbalances.  Margo Marrone, founder of The Organic Pharmacy and her daughter Roxy are the co-founders of eyeam, the solution-led skincare, supplements and education brand. Inspired by Roxy’s experience with adult acne and hormonal imbalance, the duo are supporting people to overcome debilitating conditions which impact their energy both at work and at home. 

Keep listening to hear Roxy and Margo’s advice on how founders can harness their hormones at work and how they can create a supportive environment for their teams too. 

Margo & Roxy’s advice:

• Never go against what your body is telling you
• The four different hormonal phases are effectively four different sets of skills:
  • Follicular - energised, a good time to schedule and plan
  • Ovulatory - communicative, a good time to set up talks and events
  • Luteal - detail-driven, a good time to tackle paperwork
  • Menstrual - a good time for rest and reflection
• Communication is important; there is no shame attached to your bodily cycle so share how you are feeling.  This is constructive and helpful for your colleagues
• Listen to your needs; you don’t have to push to the limits
• Managing hormones is not just a physical concern, it’s a mental one too.  Understand why you are stressed and self-regulate
• Work smarter not harder; it’s the output that counts, not the time spent.  Ideas which come when in the shower or on a walk can be so useful
• Quick ways to reduce stress can be breathwork (4-7-8 breathing helps) and humming
• Nutrition means not just food but your whole environment: the people around you, the things you read and watch, as well as what you eat
• Stop worrying about the to-do list; simply clear your head and tackle one task at a time

FF&M recommends: 

• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.

FF&M enables you to own your own PR. Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2023 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

Juliet Fallowfield: [00:00:00] Welcome to season 11 of How To Start Up, the podcast helping you start and scale your business with advice from entrepreneurs on what to do now, next, or never. This season, we'll be hearing about all things productivity from amazing entrepreneurs sharing how they've hacked theirs. Hosted by me, Juliet Fallowfield, founder of the B Corp certified PR communications and podcasting consultancy, Fallowfield & Mason. Our mission is to enable you to master your own storytelling, whether that be via PR or podcasting, all with a long term view. 

Juliet Fallowfield: CIPD research shows that 67 percent of UK working women aged between 40 and 60 with menopausal symptoms have experienced a negative impact on their work, with 79 percent reporting feeling less able to concentrate. Clearly hormones play a large role in our lives as female founders of all ages. With this in mind, I wanted to hear from a team with great experience in helping people overcome their hormonal imbalances.

Juliet Fallowfield: Margo Marrone, founder of The Organic Pharmacy, and her daughter Roxy are the co [00:01:00] founders of eyeam, the solution led skincare, supplements, and education brand. Inspired by Roxy's own experience with adult acne and hormonal imbalance, the duo are now supporting people to overcome debilitating conditions

Juliet Fallowfield: which impact their energy, both at work and at home. Keep listening to hear Roxy and Margo's advice on how founders can harness their hormones at work and how they can also create a supportive environment for their teams too.

Juliet Fallowfield: Hi Margo and Roxy. Thank you so much for your time on How to Start Up today.

Juliet Fallowfield: Before we get into the episode, I'd love it if you could just give a brief introduction as to who you are and a bit about the background of the businesses that you've started 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: I'm Margo. I founded Organic Pharmacy 25 years ago I then sold it 8 years ago, and co founded eyeam With Roxy around 2 years ago? 

Juliet Fallowfield: Amazing. Well, congratulations.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Thank you. And my background is I'm a pharmacist, homeopath, entrepreneur, and of course, a cosmetic formulator and an energy [00:02:00] healer.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: She did her training in shamanism and then in evangelistic pastoral training. I'm just about to be ordained a pastor. Yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: Wow. That's amazing. And Roxy, the reason, you know, all of this is because you are.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. So my backgrounds in health coaching, holistic health coaching, specifically around hormones and gut health, because my whole reason for even going into that field is because when I was suffering on my own healing journey, no one could give me answers. Mum was obviously giving me really good answers, but Unfortunately, the information out there at that moment in time was not suitable.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So I had to go into more and more depth about it. And that's what kind of led me to my training and then led me to start eyeam with Mum.

Juliet Fallowfield: It's amazing. Well, the fact that you're a mother daughter and you're working together and you're still talking to each other, I think is a minor miracle because lots of mothers and daughters would always be like, hell no. So what led you to [00:03:00] A, work together, but B, start the business and the brand that you have?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Well, really it was my own personal journey with hormonal acne and hormonal imbalance. That was where eyeam was born because I had come off contraceptive pill And I had a whole plethora of symptoms that I'd never experienced in my life. You knowcystic acne, mood swings weight issues really, really a lot of mental disorder, gut issues.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And when I did all my research I was like, this actually makes a lot of sense because these are all symptoms of the contraceptive pill, but they don't actually tell you any of this fully. They don't tell you that it stops your period. 

Juliet Fallowfield: So like 99 percent of people I've interviewed, it's born out of a problem you wanted to fix for yourself.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah, definitely. And really Roxy. When she came to me with the problem For me, what was really, really interesting was the emotional effect that it had on her. [00:04:00] She was absolutely devastated emotionally. And I think that was really the beginning of the journey. And I always think out of something traumatic, always something good happens.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: and just watching her these last two and a half years, just blossom into this incredible, she's always been an incredible human being, but

Roxy & Margo Marrone: she's 

Juliet Fallowfield: Like mother like daughter.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: transformed into this, I don't know, like this health guru who is like, so inspirational and so amazing. And just to watch her conquer all of her issues and problems.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And what I said to her is that it's so beautiful to watch as a mother, but it's also beautiful to watch as a healer, because dealing with these issues in her early twenties is phenomenal. I mean, I didn't deal with my issues until I was in my 50s. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So that's really where eyeam was born and it [00:05:00] really is a very emotional project for us. And I call it my healing toolbox and just wanting to share everything in my healing toolbox to help people with the same problem. And that's really why we have affirmations tied with each of our product that you say at the same time.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And that's something I learned as a coach is at the at the process of habit stacking, so stacking two habits together to make one of them stick. And now, I literally can't go a day without using my eye serum and saying my affirmations. Like, I feel like something is wrong. I'm like, oh, like something's missing in my step.

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, it's so,

Juliet Fallowfield: interesting you say this I became self employed just over four years ago and going from that world to this world, I didn't know that this world really existed. I'd seen people start companies and I knew it was a thing, but I was on a career path, I was moving brand to brand and I was getting promoted and then suddenly I found myself self employed and a lot of friends who are back in the old world are like, Oh, you get endless holiday and you can work any way that you like.

Juliet Fallowfield: And my goodness, it must be the best life you've ever had. Are you joking? I've never [00:06:00] been more tired. I gave up meditation, exercise, healthy eating, sleep, all of the things that I should have been doing to maintain and really protect myself and look after myself were harder to grasp because I needed more time to work.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I think when you lose the structure and you lose, a big boss, expecting you to be at your desk at a certain time. You're like, well, okay, maybe I'll sleep in for an hour this morning because I'm really tired and it doesn't matter because I don't have a meeting until 10, but that means I'm not going to go to the gym.

Juliet Fallowfield: Whereas if you're working with someone else, you just get up and go You're on a bit more of a rule book. And I think, especially with female founders, and we know that so many more women need to be empowered to start businesses because our entire GDP will benefit.

Juliet Fallowfield: Alison Rose review is well quoted. But a lot of women have a lot of barriers to entry in the sense that they have many more stakeholders at home that need them and they have more strains on their personal lives as well. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. 

Juliet Fallowfield: But your hormones, it's so annoying. I feel like we should get a tax break for being women because even things like, I coworking office and I'm in the gym with all [00:07:00] the guys I work with in a coworking office and it takes me 20 minutes longer to get to my desk because I have to dry my hair and I put makeup on.

Juliet Fallowfield: It's like, well Jules, you don't have to do that. I'm like I'm 43, I'm taught that that's what I have to do. And that's 20 minutes I don't have, which is ridiculous. Bad example. But the hormones, I have periods, I have hormonal imbalances. It's not fair.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Well, do you know what, this is exactly what we're going to be talking about. And I'm going to tell you how, if you work with yourself, that all of that is a lie. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Right. Let's go. What does harnessing your hormones mean to you?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So really we're going to talk about what you just stated was what happens when you go against what your body is telling you, essentially, that's literally what is your body is saying, hon, we need a sec and it's okay that you need a sec. So what balancing your hormones means to me is cycle syncing and you know, we're made of four phases during our menstrual cycle.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So in 28 days. [00:08:00] We have four different phases, and that means we have four different sides to us and four different sets of skills. So it's not a bad thing that we have all of the, these amazing phases, but we actually have certain skills during each phase that we can use to our advantage. But if you're going against the skillset that you are most capable of that moment, that's when you experience the hormonal imbalance, the irritability.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: my future self sometimes looks back at my past self and I'm like, who the hell booked that in my calendar? I am exhausted. So what are the four phases?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: we've got follicular, we've got ovulatory luteal and menstrual. your follicular is the, just after your period. And it's something that you feel energized, ready to go. It's really good for planning. So scheduling, planning, strategising, that sort of thing. Then you've got your ovulatory, which is when you feel communicative and social.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So you want to bang out all your events, talks, podcasts, even that's like the time to [00:09:00] do it. I'm not, I am my Luteal, but I talk about this later where we can do anything at any time. But it's like how you set yourself up to manage all of them so that you don't get burned out, you don't get tired. And then Luteal it's for detail driven

Roxy & Margo Marrone: methods and detail driven work. So really looking at all the fine lines doing all the paperwork, admin, that sort of thing. And then menstrual is reflecting because that's the only time in our cycle. So our hormones are at the lowest, but our two hemispheres of our brain our left and our right.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So our left is the analytical and the right is our feeling side, but that the only time that they're firing at each other. So you're actually in a moment. In your body that you can reflect and analyse really deeply. So you can actually see things that you may have not been able to see in your follicular phase or in your ovulatory phase.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Cause you're like, go, go, go, ready to go. And that's actually why you're saying, Oh, a man is, has it so easy. Actually, we have the advantage

Roxy & Margo Marrone: 

Juliet Fallowfield: It sounds like a [00:10:00] superpower now.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: It totally is but unfortunately because of cultural conditioning of being made to feel Oh, you're so hormonal. Oh, is it your time of the month? Oh this oh that actually I'm superwoman.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Also, once we get to know our bodies and to know ourselves, we know that actually during that period, it's okay to rest more. And during that period, it's okay to do something else. And I think as women, we don't give ourselves permission to rest and say, do you know what? Today I actually need to rest this afternoon.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. I'm going to give myself the afternoon off. Perfectly fine. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Because you restore your batteries and you come back stronger, better, brighter.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: We actually work better.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, and that's it. When you're starting a business, you will do anything for time, anything for efficiency, and this is why this whole season's about productivity and 51 percent of the global population are women.

Juliet Fallowfield: So this is really important to highlight. [00:11:00] And same said coworkers, when you try, in fact, I was so proud of one of my colleagues, she was talking about her period in front of our male colleague. And I was like, God, back in the day, that would never happen. And I was like,

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Never. Never.

Juliet Fallowfield: No one's embarrassed everyone's fine with this, this, I'm the old one here.

Juliet Fallowfield: This is amazing.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Nobody cares. And I, and I think that's something that we, we talk about is communication is really taking the shame out of everything and just saying, actually, do you know what, today I feel like this and I'm just letting you know and it's okay.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, I think that is the autonomy that we can afford ourselves as founders is managing your diary, but managing it with the sense with these four phases in mind and going, you know what? Don't put new business pictures on that day, go for a walk. Instead, you can still work and still be effective, but it's choosing your battles.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I think with women, especially, it's changing a little bit, but I think we're so pressured to do more, more, more, more. Nothing is enough. Nothing's ever good enough. You must do more, actually [00:12:00] less. This is my mantra for the whole year. Less is more.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: That's what we've said as well. Yeah, work smarter, not harder.

Juliet Fallowfield: yeah, completely.

Juliet Fallowfield: Hello. We're just taking a quick break to announce our new podcast training course. If you're thinking about starting a podcast, but have no idea what to do first, this is for you over an eight week program, you'll have a weekly webinar with myself plus two one on one consulting calls, and this is all backed up by eight written guides to help you learn everything that we have learnt in getting how to start up in the top 25 percent of podcasts.

Juliet Fallowfield: So if you're thinking about starting a podcast, but not sure what to do, just DM us to find out more. And so what practical pieces of advice would you offer founders to harness their hormones? How should they go about this?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Well, number one is always listening to your body. So really listening to your needs and rather than pushing yourself to the limit, which I definitely used to do. So actually my hormonal acne was definitely brought on by stress and mine was such a physical reaction that my skin would start [00:13:00] to itch.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So like I could actually feel it coming on and I noticed when I was pushing myself harder at work, my skin would itch. I notice even now, like if I start pushing myself to the brim, I start to get itchy skin.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: it's

Roxy & Margo Marrone: really. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Your body sends physical handbrakes and ironically for me, it's my voice. The one thing I need to do my job is my voice. And for the last two years I've had a dysfunctional larynx. I'm like, really? And it's because my brain isn't listening. So my body's sending me an alarm bell.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: We always say your body will communicate to you what you're not listening to in your mind, in your spirit. And that's actually why our four pillars are mind, body, spirit, and skin. Because it all starts with the spirit. And then if you don't listen to that, then it starts to affect your mind and can look like anxiety, stress, depression, obsessive thinking.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And then if you still ignore that, then it moves onto your body and starts coming on with physical symptoms. But so that was my personal journey. And I know a lot of people can resonate with that as well

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. [00:14:00] And would this affect only women? 

Juliet Fallowfield: So it can affect everyone, of course, stress can affect everyone, but the reason that we really focus on women is because most of the studies that are done on everything, whether it be diet, blood tests, vaccines. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: They're all done on men because their biological hormonal system is much easier to work with. Because otherwise they would have had to test women four different times in the month. Whereas a man, they could just test them in one day because what a man experiences in a day we actually experienced that the whole month.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So that's actually why we're getting burnt out at work because our work day is tailored to a man. So yes, a man can do this, but it's not really like, that's why we're not talking about men here because we are set up for failure. So we need to take charge and say, Hey, no, we're going to do what's right for us.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: That's why we created our hormone balancing supplement because it really targets stress anxiety, blood sugar, [00:15:00] stability, inflammation, a hormone balancing, like all in one to really help women emotional regulation, nervous system regulation, all of the fun stuff that that would be that.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And magnesium are two favorite sort of supplements to really cope with all of that. But yes, it can affect both genders just in different ways. It affects women very differently to men. And so we can't treat them in the same way. So as Roxy says, for men, those phases happen in one day within 24 hours, whereas for women, it's over 28 days.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah, and also If you look at statistics, 75 percent of women are diagnosed with autoimmune disease over men. And actually 5 million women have PCOS. And so, this is not a mistake. It's because we've been neglected, honestly. And so a big part of our brand is to help educate people. And say, hey, you don't need to suffer.

Juliet Fallowfield: So that's women from puberty onwards and then you chuck in menopause. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: [00:16:00] That's where I come in as the expert having been through it. again, very little has been done on women going through the menopause. I think HRT was the answer to everything and HRT does help enormously. But I don't know if you've read Lisa Snowden's book.

Juliet Fallowfield: Not yet, but I'm starting to compile a list. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: She summarises everything in there and it's literally you, you're confused, you don't know what's going on, there's a sudden shock to the system the hormones are all over the place, and it's just literally thinking.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Oh my God, what's happening to my body? And you have to slow down, you have to listen to it. And you have to just really take the time to think about What's going on? What am I feeling? What do I need? And then find the solutions to it. and know that we're not the same every day. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: It's a change.

Juliet Fallowfield: I feel like I got to my thirties and I probably had two years where I was like, great. I'm an adult. I know myself. I know what I'm doing in life. And then suddenly life shifts that you start caring for parents or [00:17:00] other stuff happens where life gets stressful in another way.

Juliet Fallowfield: And then you chuck in perimenopause and menopause is like really like, this is just another thing. And then the fact that men don't have to deal with it does feel really unfair, I started my business when I was 39. I'm now 43, can people balance their hormones and start companies?

Juliet Fallowfield: Is it a huge task?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: well, I'll say from experience, I've done it. I've literally done both at the same time because I was still very much on my journey when we had started the brand. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Study number one.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah, I was study number one, so I was literally the person and actually my work has given me the opportunity to learn so much about myself, learn how to help others and actually work through so much stuff that I probably wouldn't have if I didn't have my business.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And, that's obviously a personal choice because I chose a business that worked in wellness but do what you love so that you can always do everything in one go. If you're [00:18:00] going to start a business, then, do it in something that feels right to you. And if you're on your healing journey, then, you'll feel more connected to that.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: I think managing your hormones isn't just a physical thing. Mm. Mm. It very much is a mental, emotional, and spiritual journey. And I think that had I known this 20 years ago I would have been a different person, but that wasn't my journey. So, what I would encourage other women to do is really start to, to look at yourselves.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: You know, I had fibroids in my mid 40s, yeah, which led me on to have a hysterectomy But we just battle on, you see, I was taught to battle on no matter 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: what's going on, just battle on. And my body was like, no, you need to, to look at what's going on. You need to rest. You need to take time out. And my mentality was, no, I'm running a business. I'm going to just come battle [00:19:00] on. And what I would say to women is it's okay to have some rest.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Nothing's 

Juliet Fallowfield: It feels like failure. 

Juliet Fallowfield: , We're taught not to make a fuss,, don't step out of your lane, 

Juliet Fallowfield: who do you think you are? You're not good enough, unless you're married successful with children, but this, it's not sustainable, especially as we know the working week was designed by Ford and employed men and now women are working

Juliet Fallowfield: like the working week is not structured well, but given when you start a business, It is going to be stressful. How does stress impact your hormones?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So cortisol is our stress hormone, and that is a factor, but we need cortisol to function. We actually needed to wake up. However, there's an analogy that mum always says of a pendulum, and she says that you can either be at the bottom of the pendulum swinging round and round and round.

Juliet Fallowfield: Quite a large circumference. Yeah.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Literally, in chaos, or you can be at the top, just like, [00:20:00] chilling.

Juliet Fallowfield: Pirouetting.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And so the swing doesn't affect you, because the reality of life, whether you're a woman or a man, is that stuff happens. it's not the stuff that happens to you. It's how do you deal with it? Yeah. The important issue.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. So it's not so much that you have a business or you have thousands of other issues. Stuff happens, how do you deal with it? That's the issue. And then really, your mind is the controller of your hormones, so if you want to balance your hormones, you need to, like, work on balancing your mind and reducing your stress.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: That's why implementing self care is such an important practice into our routines and anyone that's on that journey too. Yeah. 

Juliet Fallowfield: So, really taking accountability for that stress and managing it as best you can,

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Accountability and, you know, Jesus said something beautiful. My people perish for lack of knowledge. Education, understanding, wisdom is knowledge. So, so we need to [00:21:00] understand our bodies, what is going on and how to deal with it. So what, what do you need, Juliet? To calm or self regulate your system and do it, you know, there's no shame in saying, actually guys, I need some time out or I'm not going to be drinking tonight or I need, to have some rest.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: You know, my rule now is no dinners after seven. Yeah, no way. I just refuse to go out for dinner after seven. It's not happening.

Juliet Fallowfield: We had a guest, Serena Hood on from Collagerie a few weeks ago

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. 

Juliet Fallowfield: I just get up and leave. People know that I will not be out past a certain time and I'm gone. And it's just hilarious. She's like, I'm not even rude anymore. Cause people just know I'm just going to go to bed and that's who I am.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I know myself and I was like, I 

Juliet Fallowfield: respect that. 

Juliet Fallowfield: But I think we're such people pleasers, 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: I agree we're people pleasers and, and it's power. It's really empowering to actually say, thank you [00:22:00] so much. It's not a reflection on you, but this is what I need. And so we self regulate by following our needs and there is no shame in that. There's nothing wrong with that.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: We don't need to apologise for it. We just need to do it and take care of ourselves. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, I find it fascinating that my colleagues are in their twenties and they are so much better at it than I am, but I've got more life experience. I should technically know more, but I look at them and they lead by example. And I'm like, I am setting a terrible example, 

Juliet Fallowfield: they just know themselves so much younger than I did. And I think maybe we, I'd grown up in a just do and do and do until it's done, whereas they're like, no, there's more to life and I respect it.

Juliet Fallowfield: So I'm learning from them, which is a thrill. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Lovely, Juliet. And it's a balance. Yeah. You know, because, you know, if you're running your own business, the reality is that you do need to work harder. Yes. But at the same time, it's recognising when your body needs to stop. 

Juliet Fallowfield: What are the dangers of hormonal [00:23:00] imbalance? 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: it's not so much a danger, but you're just going to get symptoms, which is what I experienced. So you're going to get acne. You could be bloated or have lymphatic drainage issues. You could have higher inflammation. So be swollen this can look like rashes or just higher increase of allergens all the time.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Like if you're allergic to foods It can look like weight gain. exhaustion. irritation, overwhelmness, mood swings. All of that really is kind of gut issues. Like it just 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. So there's an alarm bell popping up somewhere, somehow.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Ditto. Honestly, ditto. So I think for menopause it's exactly the same, minus the acne. It's literally every, every symptom that you've listed. I think for me the hardest part was the exhaustion part of it. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Because energy is so 

Juliet Fallowfield: important. Your energy levels, it can make or break a day where you're feeling like, I can do anything, which you kind of need that deluded belief you can do anything. [00:24:00] But when you don't have that, doubt yourself.

Juliet Fallowfield: So we, as a team, we track our time through work predominantly remotely, and we look at what time we're spending on projects to see what client work works, what doesn't for us, would you say tracking your energy levels is more important than your time?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: 100%. That's how we do it personally. I mean, to be honest, we have this very small team, so we really have to do a lot. So we will just bang out stuff if we've got all the energy. I'll use an example. Yesterday I had such a long important urgent to-do list like, and these were like things that needed to be done asap and

Roxy & Margo Marrone:  they were really big tasks and I kind of got halfway through it and it was getting to like four o'clock and I was like oh my god my skin started to itch and my eyes started to kind of get glossy and tired and I couldn't focus properly and I thought I really just need a break right now. So, cause I thought I was going to power on and I was like, no, I'm going to go downstairs, do [00:25:00] some self care for 20 minutes.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And I did that and I felt so much better that I was able to do a little bit more work and then I was like, okay, now I'm finished with the day. Like I actually can't do any more. My brain, nothing is so important that you can't wait till tomorrow. Or wait an hour, like really nothing will happen. And so there was a study actually that in 2017 that said that busyness was a acquired lifestyle that people wanted to say that they were busy.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: It's like you ask someone how they are and you're like, I'm so busy. 

Juliet Fallowfield: I cannot wait because I've clocked this as well and it sounded, people asking me, I'm like, I'm really bored of hearing myself say this. I can't wait until someone asks me, go, yeah, no, I'm not busy. And the team are happy, the clients are happy, the revenue's there and I'm not busy and I got there in January and then it all undid itself and I had a

Juliet Fallowfield: taste of it and I was like, Oh, this is amazing.

Juliet Fallowfield: This is so exciting. It's a goal and the busy fool, you know, no one wants to be a busy fool as well. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Most of the time [00:26:00] we're so busy, but we're putting in sub par work. So it's just like, you should work smarter, not harder. And that's why self regulation and nervous system regulation is such an integral part into my practice personally. A lot of my hormonal issues were because of my nervous system regulation, and until I sorted that out, like fully, and that actually took a really long time to do.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: 

Juliet Fallowfield: It's unlearning habits, 

Juliet Fallowfield: so 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: yeah, 

Juliet Fallowfield: it takes a while.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah, exactly. And that's why we call it the eyeam prescription, which is the affirmations tied with the skincare, because it really is a prescription to help break programming, you know, we practice affirmations every day to rewire your brain because that's possible.

Juliet Fallowfield: And with tracking energy, how would you go about doing that? So Margo, in your experience, how have you really disseminated your energy levels?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So it's really recognising how I feel. And before, like I said, we come from the old [00:27:00] school, it's like, you soldier on until you fall. And I literally would have to fall in order to rest. And then one day I said to myself, you know what? This is really stupid. Why do you need to be sick to rest?

Roxy & Margo Marrone:  It was that huge guilt complex. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: 

Juliet Fallowfield: pilots have caps on how many hours they can fly, 

Juliet Fallowfield: why shouldn't we? And I think we laugh, I talked to my 20 year old colleagues, well they're 24, but say back in the day, the olden times before the pandemic, we would slog ourselves to work if we had head colds and you were not allowed to take a day off because it's just a cold.

Juliet Fallowfield: Imagine now going to an office and sneezing on people. It'd just be like, you've got my plague, stay away. So yeah, that preemptive rest is super key.

Juliet Fallowfield: Do you feel the conversation around productivity should be more focused on quality of output rather than time worked?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. There's a really lovely book that I adore and I always recommend to everyone and it's called The Four Agreements. And it says that, you know, one of the agreements is always do your best and your best is not always the same. [00:28:00] Yeah.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: There are some days when your best is less than other days. And that goes back to your cycle syncing, . On one day, your output will not be the same as another day. And that's completely fine. We just need to be recognising that obviously there's something wrong. If someone's constantly doing subpar, then that's a whole other issue.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: But if you're doing your best a hundred percent, every time you can recognise that a hundred percent is not always the same. 

Juliet Fallowfield: I saw a really nice thing on Instagram around this saying 100%, you give 100%, but if you're only feeling 30 percent of yourself and you give that 30%, that is 100%.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: That's exactly it. 

Juliet Fallowfield: How would you support your teams with this as well? Cause I can obviously, I have the agency to look after myself.

Juliet Fallowfield: I'm running my own business, but how can I enable my teams to do this as well and look after my people?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: back in the day when I had a large team I would always spot when someone was off, [00:29:00] not themselves, on that particular day. And I would then ask them, Are you okay? Is everything okay? What's going on? Share. Communicate. Tell us. Yeah. So that we and your colleagues can understand if you're not feeling well.

Roxy & Margo Marrone:  And in fact, most of the office arguments would quite often come when somebody wasn't feeling themselves. Yeah. And somebody else would say something that would trigger them. And then that would go into a whole spiral. Whereas if everyone communicates and, and you come in and you say, Oh, Juliet, by the way I've got really bad cramps today.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: I've taken X, Y, and Z to help me, but I'm just letting you know, in case I'm a little bit cranky. And, and my response always is thanks so much for letting you know make sure that I'm mindful of that. And I think that's really important.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, it's 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: [00:30:00] Yeah,

Roxy & Margo Marrone: 

Juliet Fallowfield: I had a colleague once and I was working back at Chanel and she's like, Oh no, it's really obvious when you go to the gym or not before work. And I was like, what? She's like, you're a different person if you've come in when you've exercised and then you haven't gone to the gym this morning. I was like, Oh God, I'm really sorry.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah. It's good to know. It's 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: know these things.

Juliet Fallowfield: I went to the gym to be a nicer human to her. In a way, because I knew that I'd be a better colleague if I'd done that for me and for the team, because I was clearer headed, I had more energy. And the fact it was so obvious, I was like, well, it's really embarrassing if I don't go to the gym because I could go to the gym.

Juliet Fallowfield: And if I'm not, then, you know, I'm, it's impacting them.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: that's a part of your healing toolbox. So everyone has their own healing toolbox  like I noticed the difference if I'm not exercising, if I'm not implementing my self care and when I'm actually working against my hormones all the time, then I actually start to get symptoms because, you know, in actual matter of fact, PMS is common, but it's actually not a normal thing that should be [00:31:00] happening in the body.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: But due to the lack of knowledge, research, and honestly, just information that is shared with everyone, we're made to feel like it's normal because doctors will just want to give you the contraceptive pill 

Juliet Fallowfield: shut 

Juliet Fallowfield: you 

Juliet Fallowfield: up. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah,

Juliet Fallowfield: Same with IBS. Apparently it's just a blanket. Well, it's not, there's not actually anything that's IBS. It's just a blanket go away now. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Half of the time is, is really understanding where your stress is coming from and how can you quickly deal with it. Because quite often you don't have hours and hours to go and do something, but how can you quickly deal with it? So, you know, breath work really works. it's called the four, seven, eight method, and you basically inhale for four, hold for seven and exhale for eight.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And that will immediately get you into your parasympathetic nervous system. So if you're having a moment at work where you're like, Oh my God, I just, like, this is stressing me out. Then you just do your four, seven, eight breath. You also humming is really good. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yes, talk to me about humming cause it's come at me [00:32:00] from the NHS nurse who's trying to retrain my voice for me. She's like, humming, you need to hum all the time. And then I read an article about you and Tatler and you were talking about humming and I was like, humming, it's coming at me from everywhere.

Juliet Fallowfield: Like, what is that?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Humming stops your thoughts from going round and round and round. So we have a nerve that connects our brain and our gut. It's called the vagus nerve. So the humming stimulates your voice box, which is connected to your vagus nerve. It touches it.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So then that actually helps it vibrate. And then that's actually what helps the regulation. And in our hormone check drops, we've got an ingredient that's clinically proven to support your gut brain, skin access, and your vagus nerve called Timut pepper. 

Juliet Fallowfield: I love this. Well, I 

Juliet Fallowfield: was going to ask you, my next question is how much does nutrition impact your hormones? Which I'm assuming hugely because for me, like I remember in the eighties, it was all about heart health and the nineties is about mental health. And now it's gut health, gut health, gut health. You wake up in the morning and your vagus nerve will tell your brain how much your [00:33:00] dopamine endorphins serotonin, it tells you what you've got in the bank, but talk to me about nutrition and hormones.

Juliet Fallowfield: Okay.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Well, it's interesting because we recently did a workshop with Dr. Bruce Lipton. Mm. And he said your environment determines your state. Yeah. So your environment includes your food. The people around you, what you watch, what you read, what you listen to, what you listen to. So these are all nutrition, 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: but of course food is the number one because that, you know, that's a physical thing.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: And you know, we could, we could have a whole separate podcast on that. Yeah. But if you wanted to look at like cycle syncing for hormonal specifically, if you're, looking at different phases and what foods to eat. So during your follicular, you would eat more lighter foods than like chicken or vegetables like zucchini in your ovulatory.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Oestrogen loves salads. So you want to eat lots and lots of salads during this phase. And you're, that's what you [00:34:00] actually are your most energy. So naturally you're like ready to go. And so the salad will actually just keep feeding your oestrogen. And then when you have your luteal. Because your progesterone starts rising then it's really important to feed it natural sugars and starchy foods and if we actually go against this then your glucose will go up and that's what we experience the PMS of the bloating and the inflammation so actually just by feeding yourself a little bit more of the craving that you're having so you're actually not being weak by oh I really fancy some chocolate but if you eat an organic unrefined version of everything that I just said.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: It is actually feeding your hormones, and then progesterone can function, and progesterone has a really calming effect on the mind and body. So if that is off kilter, then that's why we get the mood swings. 

Juliet Fallowfield: I feel like I've fast tracked knowledge in this last 42 minutes and 49 seconds learned a lot about a lot. Thank you. 

Juliet Fallowfield: what would you say is your number [00:35:00] one productivity?

Juliet Fallowfield: And I say this because during the season, everyone's like, don't push yourself to be more productive. It's got a real stigma attached to it. And me blindly going, everyone wants to be more productive. Everyone's like, careful, because it's, it's a bit of a bad word now, but what would you say would be the number one thing to do if you're starting this journey, like one hack around it?

Juliet Fallowfield: or how to be more productive, but I say that sort of caveated. Mm

Roxy & Margo Marrone: I personally think giving yourself permission to just be and do what you need in that moment. That will actually make you more productive. And for me, it's getting out of your own head. I always find thinking about the to do list. Yeah. Takes more energy than the to do list. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Stop worrying about the to do list and just take one task at a time. 

Juliet Fallowfield: We track our time as I mentioned with Toggl and in there is a podcasting, a reading, a walking, a just going off and thinking, and one of my team came to the Monday call, I said, success and [00:36:00] failure from the week before, and we always do this every Monday because success and failure need to be embraced.

Juliet Fallowfield: And she's like, Oh, so stuck on this thing. And it's driving me mad. So I just put my laptop down and I went for a really long walk and I came back with that solution and this solution. And

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yes. It's 

Juliet Fallowfield: So good. Yeah, because you're away and you're thinking and your eyes and ears are engaged elsewhere and that's when they 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah, 

Juliet Fallowfield: subconscious helps you out.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: well, actually that's your brain because when it's not in the mode of operating and functioning and having to think about all these tasks and it has a moment to just flow, then that's actually, do you notice that you get your best ideas in the shower because you're not thinking of anything.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: So when you're not thinking of anything, that's why meditation is such an amazing, it's basically a download.Mum and I get them. All the time in our sleep, 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yes. Well, my counselor said that she's like, she gave me this hack around dreaming because she said your subconscious is there to help when you go to bed, say to yourself, I'm allowed to dream. [00:37:00] And every time I've done it, I dream. I haven't dreamt for six months. I really miss it. She's like, just remind yourself you're allowed to dream.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I go to sleep and I have these crazy dreams and come out being like, this is 

Juliet Fallowfield: amazing. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: It's the best feeling.

Juliet Fallowfield: So something that we do is the guest from the episode before has a question for you guys, and I won't tell you who it is unless you want me to, but she said her question was, how important is it for you to trust and how easy is it for you to trust people because for her and everyone, loyalty is everything within a business, especially a startup.

Juliet Fallowfield: And until you trust people, you can't embrace loyalty. So what are your thoughts and feelings around trust?

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. Okay. So this is a really, really, really important question. And both Roxy and I have a very, very strong spiritual practice. we're with a spiritual Christian church. And there's a very powerful connection to God. And so when you, you allow that channel to come through, [00:38:00] then it's called spiritual intelligence and spiritual discernment.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Yeah. You immediately know. When something's off and something's, it's the same as intuition, 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: We'll know immediately.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, because I've always put it down to gut feeling. That's my obsession with gut health as many years ago, suffered from that and did a lot of healing around that, but your gut feeling is like asking your Mum for advice. And I'm very jealous that you're in business with your mom, Roxy, because my Mum is always right.

Juliet Fallowfield: She always knows the answers. And it's that intuition and that gut feeling, that reaction to somebody that you can have, even if they haven't said a single word, you have this kind of chemical connection with somebody. And they say that you can sense somebody walk into a room, even if you haven't seen them.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I've been having debates with mum about this. We were talking about Reiki the other day. She's like, it's ridiculous. And this person quoted to do some Reiki healing. She's like, well, I don't need to talk to you. I don't need to Zoom. I'm going to sit at home and think about you. And mum's like, that's utterly ridiculous.

Juliet Fallowfield: And I was like, but mum, there's something about energy that I [00:39:00] can't deny it. I'm, I'm still learning about it 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: we are energy. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: We can change everything if we want to, but the programming is so ingrained in us that we can't. And we, our mind actually stops us from believing everything. 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: and that's why I'm going back to our I am affirmations is because we are here to reprogram those limiting beliefs because that's actually the only way that you can experience true healing. You can do everything else, You could do all the food and 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: exercise and whatever.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: It doesn't matter if your mind is not on the train with you. The mind controls the body and the spirit is the source. it comes from that way down. Yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: Incredible. And what would your question be? 

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Do you feel good where you're at right now in your life? What's standing out to you? And what needs to be decluttered out of your life? 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, because less is more in the sense that you've got less problems, less things to think about, you can focus and get into that flow state.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: Thank you so much. It's [00:40:00] wonderful to meet you both. Huge congratulations on your new business. And I'm sure it will go from strength to strength, but in a really healthy, supportive, positive way. So well done.

Roxy & Margo Marrone: I'm so glad. Thank you so much, Juliet. Thank you for having us.

Juliet Fallowfield: I really hope you've enjoyed this conversation, you can find a recap of all the advice so kindly shared by guests in the show notes, along with our contact details, we'd love it.

Juliet Fallowfield: If you could rate and review or share this podcast, because it really does help other people discover it. To incentivise this a little, I would very happily offer you one of our PR guides on how to share editorial coverage legally. Just DM us or send us an email, hello@fallowfieldmason.com with review in the title and we'll share it on.