The Aesthetics Episode: Anatomy, Honesty, and What You Actually Need

Jeni Britton | Founder of Jeni's and Floura, on the Cost of Being a Woman with Ambition | The Breadwinners Podcast

Jeni Britton built Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams [https://jenis.com/pages/jeni-britton?srsltid=AfmBOoqjOlRPOnxC4pTsY4q2Y8IW1uM7NPLFanHCDYANObPoWHDtVQ9M]from a $30,000 SBA loan into a $175 million company. She is doing it again with Floura [https://floura.com], her next-generation fiber company turning produce trimmings like watermelon rinds and apple cores into nutrient-dense bars. This episode is not a business case study. Alexis Contos sits down with Jeni for an interior conversation about the person underneath both companies. The near-death experience at age seven that made her feel invincible for the rest of her life. The family that broke apart violently when she was fourteen. Why she does not believe in free will anymore. The ninety-eight-year-old version of herself she talks to most days. What she has refused to give up for any company, in any season. This is a conversation about belief. About vision. About what it costs to be a woman who is ambitious, and what it costs to keep pretending you are not. What you will hear: * The near-death experience at age seven that shaped every decision after it * Why Jeni had to "pretend to be less ambitious" to build something big * How she thinks about intuition, vision, and listening to her future self * What her definition of 'financial freedom' actually buys a woman * Raising her daughter Greta, and what it taught her about herself * Leaving the company that carries her name, and the time it took to recover * Why she does not want a legacy. She wants to be wrecked at ninety-eight. Jeni Britton is the founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, which she built from a single farmer's market stall in Columbus, Ohio into a national brand with more than 80 scoop shops and 12,500 retail placements. She is now the co-founder and CEO of Floura, a Certified B Corporation tackling America's fiber deficiency and food waste through upcycled produce trimmings. Join The Breadwinners community: * Subscribe on Substack: wearethebreadwinners.substack.com [https://wearethebreadwinners.substack.com] * Follow on Instagram: @wearethebreadwinners [https://www.instagram.com/wearethebreadwinners/] * Rate & review wherever you listen. It helps more women find this show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

You Can't Productivity Your Way Out of Burnout | Dr. Pooja Lakshmin on Why Real Self-Care Is Infrastructure

Most women have been sold self-care as a product. Dr. Pooja Lakshmin [https://poojalakshmin.substack.com] is here to tell you it's infrastructure. Pooja is a board-certified psychiatrist, New York Times contributor, and author of the national bestseller Real Self-Care: Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included. [https://www.amazon.com/Real-Self-Care-Transformative-Redefining-Wellness/dp/0593489721]In this episode, she breaks down the four principles of real self-care (boundaries, compassion, values, power), the difference between performative wellness and the internal work that actually moves the needle, and why high-achieving women keep landing in the same burnout loop. She also shares the moment she landed in the hospital after her own bestseller launch, what she had to unlearn about pacing and ambition, and the framework she now uses to make every yes, no, and negotiate. What we discussed: * The story of how Pooja landed at the very first Breadwinners dinner seven months pregnant with twins, and why she calls that night the room where strangers became people speaking the same language. * Her origin story: growing up the eldest daughter in a South Asian immigrant family where becoming a doctor was decided before she was born, choosing psychiatry against expectations, and the moment at 27 when she blew up her marriage and moved into a San Francisco wellness commune that turned out to be a cult. * The difference between faux self-care and real self-care, broken down through the yoga class most women have lived: walking in stressed, comparing yourself to the woman in the better leggings, leaving more depleted than you came in. * Why the four principles (boundaries, compassion, values, power) are not affirmations but infrastructure, and how Pooja walks her own patients through schedule audits to surface what's actually optional. * The line that landed hardest: "If you're a good mom, you can productivity your way out of this." We unpacked the meal kits, the apps, the planners, and the question almost no one is asking: to what end. * Why hobbies are not a luxury. Why the activity has to be uniquely yours, not performative, not productive, not posted. Tennis as a happy place. The Substack prompt that hit: what would you do to truly enjoy something that no one else needs to see. * The Real Self-Care Thermometer: how to know when you're in the green (spontaneously generous, easy yes, real energy) versus the red (resentful, zombie scrolling, every ask feels like a chore). * Modeling this for our kids. Pooja telling her four-year-old she was going to a Florence and the Machine concert instead of saying "work meeting," and why that distinction matters. * Family logistics. The decision to make childcare a permanent line item in the family budget. Night nurses through every pregnancy. Why getting support is not a luxury and the case for being transparent about it. * Pooja's own burnout. The four nights in the hospital after Real Self-Care became a bestseller. The coach who told her the thing that will stop her career is not her skill, it's burnout. The Glennon Doyle invitation she pushed to January, and what happened when she did. * The boundary framework that changed how she works: the boundary is the pause, not the no. Every request has three answers: yes, no, or negotiate. And if you can't absorb the cost of no today, the question is what you need to do over the next six months to get there. * Quantum Shifts, her next book. The in-between space after a divorce, a launch, a diagnosis, a birth. Why high-achieving women try to rush through it, and what they miss when they do. * What she would tell her 27-year-old self. The slow-down advice she rejected for decades and now claims as a superpower. Join The Breadwinners community: Subscribe on Substack: wearethebreadwinners.substack.com [https://wearethebreadwinners.substack.com] Follow on Instagram: @wearethebreadwinners [https://www.instagram.com/wearethebreadwinners/] Rate and review wherever you listen. It helps more women find this show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

School Is Closed 46% of the Year. Molly Morse Finally Built the Solution.

School is out 46% of the year [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7414713501601988608/]. After you subtract PTO and federal holidays, working parents are left covering 99 days with no formal childcare — and no amount of workplace flexibility closes that gap. Molly Morse isn't just naming the problem. She built the solution. Molly Morse [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollydmorse/] is the co-founder of Recess [hello-recess.com], a marketplace that connects parents to afterschool programs, camps, and kids' classes - with real-time availability, actual filters, and no glorified Craigslist energy. She spent a decade building consumer marketplaces before becoming a mother and experiencing firsthand how broken the search-and-booking experience was. That rage-plus-inspiration moment became a company. In this episode, Molly breaks down the data most people feel but haven't quantified, why ethical appeals to corporations will never move the needle on childcare, what AI is doing to marketplaces (and why it's actually a tailwind for Recess), and how she and her husband structured their household so she could build without burning everything down. What you'll take from this conversation: - Why 1.3 million people miss work every month because of childcare breakdowns — and 90% of them are women - How to make a business case for childcare benefits that corporations will actually act on (hint: it's ROI, not ethics) - The marketplace dynamics that explain why parents feel like everything is full while providers can't fill seats - How Recess is building the real-time inventory layer that makes AI search actually useful for families - The "systems are temporary" framework Molly uses at work and at home — and why fixing things at the wrong time is its own kind of problem Find Recess at hello-recess.com and on Instagram @hello_recess [https://www.instagram.com/hello_recess/]. Molly is active on LinkedIn. Join The Breadwinners community: Subscribe on Substack: wearethebreadwinners.substack.com [wearethebreadwinners.substack.com] Follow on Instagram: @wearethebreadwinners [https://www.instagram.com/wearethebreadwinners/] Rate & review wherever you listen — it helps more women find this show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

'I Am Enough': Iskra Lawrence on Breaking the Industry, Building Saltair, and Choosing Presence Over Performance

Iskra Lawrence [https://www.instagram.com/iskra]built one of the fastest-growing body care brands in America,  ⁨Saltair [https://www.instagram.com/saltair/] , without paying herself a salary. That's not the beginning of the story. It's barely the middle. This episode traces one of the most honest founder journeys in beauty: a girl from Kidderminster UK told that she was too curvy for straight-size modeling and too small for plus-size. A model who cold-called brands directly, walked into a New York agency at 22 with a pitch deck, and made a veteran agent cry — because no model had ever done that before. A woman who challenged the retouching culture at Aerie, built one of the earliest honest communities on Instagram, and then found herself in COVID isolation with a newborn, not showering, barely holding on. SaltAir was born out of the pain she lived, and the hope she needed for herself, and millions of other women. Alexis and Iskra go deep on what it actually costs to build something real while mothering two young children — the guilt of clocking off at 2:30 to do school pickup, why Iskra reinvests every dollar back into the brand, how postpartum broke her open and gave her a company, and what empathy looks like as a breadwinner in a marriage where financial power isn't split evenly. In this episode: * How Iskra went from eating disorder to building a body care brand doing nine figures in retail * The cold-calling strategy that bypassed modeling's gatekeepers — and what it actually means to outwork a broken system * Why she launched Saltaire without venture capital and has never taken a paycheck * What postpartum depression in 2020 isolation looked like — and the habit that started her recovery * Her honest take on the "3-hour bombing" discourse and how she leads a flexible, family-first team at Saltair * Why empathy — not hustle — is her superpower as a breadwinner About Iskra Lawrence: Iskra Lawrence is a model, body image advocate, and founder of Saltair [https://saltair.com/] — currently a top-three body care brand at Ulta and one of the fastest-growing at Target. Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and the BBC's 100 Most Influential Women, she spent six years challenging beauty industry norms as an Aerie model before building her own brand from the ground up. She lives in Austin with her husband Philip and their two children. Follow Iskra:@iskra on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok @saltair on all social channels Join The Breadwinners community: Subscribe on Substack [wearethebreadwinners.substack.com] Follow on Instagram: @wearethebreadwinners [https://www.instagram.com/wearethebreadwinners/] Rate & review wherever you listen — it helps more women find this show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Aesthetics Episode: Anatomy, Honesty, and What You Actually Need

The aesthetics industry is largely run by marketing. Adriana Culling [https://www.instagram.com/the_austin_injector/] built her practice to be the exception. Adriana is the founder of Maeva Aesthetics [https://www.hellomaeva.com/] in Austin - a nurse injector with a background in clinical research and a near-complete second degree in chemistry who chose building her own aesthetics business specifically so she would never feel pressure to upsell a patient or inject something that wasn't in their best interest. This episode cuts through the noise: what Botox and filler actually do, how to spot a bad injector before they touch your face, which treatments are worth it and which ones aren't, and why wanting to look refreshed doesn't make you vain or less yourself. What you'll learn: - How to vet an injector before you sit in the chair — and the red flags that should send you walking out - What "natural results" actually means and why most practices aren't delivering it - The difference between what you think you need and what your face actually needs - Which trending treatments are overhyped, which are worth it, and why it almost always depends on the individual - What it means to build a medical practice as a working mom — and why Adriana walked away from med school to do it ___________________________ Follow Adriana: TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@the_austin_injector] Instagram: The_Austin_Injector [https://www.instagram.com/the_austin_injector/] Maeva Aesthetics [https://www.hellomaeva.com/] _______________________________________ Episode references: Yardsticks Book [https://www.amazon.com/Yardsticks-Child-Adolescent-Development-Ages/dp/1892989891/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=190244559025&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5HKlWvLdahqcOmUZMY5SXhpIODMUdArkNKZHo6yFPKK2PyD4yiZ1f02TOy0m-VGE.jCLGxfM8F1XgrM0r3Dp0QKL8peq1qClpN8AIGAMBtyY&dib_tag=se&hvadid=790584758309&hvdev=c&hvexpln=0&hvlocphy=9207466&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=2642884832173926251--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=2642884832173926251&hvtargid=kwd-2293519373223&hydadcr=22592_13531287_8484&keywords=yardsticks+child+and+adolescent&mcid=25f4e4aecbfa37569fc01a621b505ba4&qid=1777230442&sr=8-1] for Childhood Development SkinBetter [Skinbetter.com] skincare products Join The Breadwinners community: Subscribe on Substack: wearethebreadwinners.substack.com [https://wearethebreadwinners.substack.com/] Follow on Instagram: @wearethebreadwinners [https://www.instagram.com/wearethebreadwinners/] Rate & review wherever you listen — it helps more women find this show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]