A Note from Your Chief Wellness Officer:

Welcome to “The New Hire”. When you are a woman with a full life and a career that keeps you very busy, you don’t always have time to “date” practitioners to find the right fit. So in The New Hire, I introduce one practitioner at a time: who she works with, what she does, why she earned a place on our “Org Chart” and what it was actually like for me to see her. These are not sponsored posts. These are real practitioners that have come to me through word of mouth references from people I trust.

First up is Abigail Mary Taugwalder, Founder of Garden of Abi in Paris. Abi came recommended to me when I truly needed it, and I want to share her precious work with you.

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The essentials

Name: Abigail Mary Taugwalder
Title: Founder, Garden of Abi | Creator of The Abi Method™
Based: Paris
Also works with: Private clients, luxury brands and hotels
Her client: Women navigating demanding lives and periods of change who want to feel more grounded, connected to themselves and clear about what comes next.

What She Does

Abi helps women come back to themselves through breath, movement, sensory ritual and conscious living.

Her signature Abi Method™ — Ground • Grow • Glow — offers a framework for slowing down, reconnecting with yourself and consciously stepping into what comes next.

Sessions may combine breathwork, movement, stillness, scent, sound and ritual, creating space to quiet some of the external noise and notice what you actually need.

Through Garden of Abi, she brings the Method to life through private and group experiences, seasonal rituals, retreats and collaborations with luxury, beauty and hospitality brands.

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Why she’s on our Org Chart?

For women accustomed to managing demanding careers, families and full calendars, slowing down can be surprisingly difficult.

Abi’s work creates an intentional pause from constant doing — a space to breathe, reconnect with yourself and return to your life through a calm nervous system with greater presence and clarity.

Credentials: Trained in Breathwork and Yin Yoga, with additional training in Vinyasa Yoga, Reiki, lymphatic practices and Access Bars. Abi also works with holistic aroma blending and sensory ritual. She has created and guided experiences for clients and brands including Goop, BMW, Le Bon Marché and Guerlain.

A personal review

I saw Abi during my in-between period (transitioning from my corporate job and my new chapter, when I was still on my journey to craft “What’s Next”) and the sound of her soothing voice lulled me into a restful slumber: I was able to let go. For the chronically sleep-deprived high-achiever, that is the whole point. We had a lovely tea and discussion after the session. I’ll be booking more enriching sessions now that my sleep cycles are balanced and regular.

For more from Abi: see her substack and check out her free ritual guide. And to experience her method for yourself, you can contact her here.

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This article is for information and education only and is not medical advice. Reading it does not create a doctor-patient relationship with Dr. Segal or with Collab Fertility. Dr. Segal’s views are her own. Speak to your own doctor before making decisions about your health or fertility care.

A note from your Chief Wellness Officer

Before we begin: this article is not meant to guilt-trip any woman who does not want children, who has put motherhood second to her career, who is struggling to conceive, or who has not found her ideal partner (yet). On the contrary, my hope is that women who can relate to my story and to stories like other women mentioned in the article can feel seen and can learn something from this article and have an action plan that is actually helpful.

The idea for this article originated from my own personal experience of pushing off motherhood to chase career milestones (was aged 33, “Assistant Vice President” when I had my child) and then essentially pushing off having any additional children because of the chronic stress and mounting pressures as a result of said career.

Dr. Thalia Segal and I met as college undergrads. We were both ambitious and career-driven as we grew in parallel: while I was climbing the corporate ladder, she completed residencies and fellowships and began her medical specialization in reproductive endocrinology to help women and couples have the children they desired. We would eventually come to meet the same profile of women: the ones who put work first for years or ended up meeting “The One” later in life or never meeting “The One” at all. The ones whose desire for a child at some point began to overshadow their ambition to make it to GM or to the C-suite. These women would never share with a colleague like me what they shared with Dr. Segal on a daily basis: their extraordinary and often grueling journey to motherhood that they run concurrently with their hustle and grind in tough corporate atmospheres that often inherently make it more difficult to conceive.

So I thought this was a relevant topic for our “The Briefing” series, where we invite an expert to share their perspective and insights on key topics affecting high-achieving women and their wellness. Dr. Thalia Segal is a double board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and the founder and medical director of Collab Fertility in Walnut Creek, California. With more than a decade of experience, she specializes in fertility preservation (egg and embryo freezing), individualized IVF protocols, preimplantation genetic testing, PMOS, recurrent pregnancy loss and LGBTQ family building. She created The Collab Way, an evidence-based, integrative care model that pairs medical expertise with nutrition, lifestyle guidance and education. Before founding her practice, she was an Assistant Professor at the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health. She is also the former Chair of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Environment and Reproduction Special Interest Group, and she wrote the environmental chapter in the textbook Reproductive Endocrinology by Yen & Jaffe.

The Briefing below is based on my interview with her, and I hope this helps women who are balancing their career progression with their family planning.

Q&A

1. Tell us a bit about your work at Collab Fertility and what made you open your own practice.

I’m the medical director at Collab Fertility in Walnut Creek, California, and I have been in the fertility space for over a decade. I started my career in academics and realized there was a really big need for quality care that was patient-centered, so I decided to open Collab Fertility. We take a really different approach. Humans pick up the phone. Patients have helped me shape the practice, and they tell me what is lacking out there. The most important thing is success rates, so every decision we make is centered around what is going to increase the odds of this individual couple walking out of here with a baby.

2. What are the main reasons your clients end up in your office? Is it just an age thing, or are there other dynamics at play?

I see people for all reasons. Maybe 25% are for egg freezing. These are women of all ages, not just women in their 30s but older women too, who haven’t met “Mr. Right” yet, or are pursuing a second career, or for many other reasons decide to proactively find out about their ovarian reserve and then decide whether they want to freeze their eggs and preserve their fertility.

This technology has been amazing. It’s really giving women the option to delay childbearing. Obviously, there are no guarantees, and I make that very clear, and the younger you freeze, the better the quality of those eggs. But it still gives you options, because the rate-limiting step in female reproduction is the quality and quantity of our eggs. We’re born with all the eggs we’re ever going to have, and they decline in those two ways. Everything else, like the uterus, doesn’t age. The cutoff to carry a pregnancy is around 55, assuming you’re healthy. Men make new sperm every three months ^[1], so the main time-limited factor is usually the eggs. If we can freeze them, you have options down the road.

We have single women. We have divorced women who come to freeze eggs. We also have older couples who may be focused on their careers, or who met later, or who met a long time ago but decided to delay having kids because of career or other reasons. I also see couples with 1 child with a genetic disease that they didn’t know one or both of them carried, and who want to have a healthy second child. I see cancer patients, who freeze their eggs or sperm before chemotherapy or radiation, because a lot of those treatments leave you infertile. I see perimenopausal women and women with premature menopause who had no idea, but who suddenly have cycle irregularity, get checked out and find their ovarian reserve is close to zero. They come to freeze eggs or embryos, or if it’s too late, we talk about donor egg options. The LGBTQ+ community also comes to see me. We do inseminations and reciprocal IVF, where one woman’s eggs are retrieved and fertilized with donor sperm and the other woman carries. We see women who need gestational carriers, and men with severely low sperm counts. We do a lot more than people realize.

Something a lot of patients tell me is, “It just wasn’t the right time. I’m switching jobs. I just got promoted. I’m starting medical school.” Career-driven, ambitious women often delay making decisions about their fertility, and it’s not their fault. I think there are issues in our society, and in the lack of support women get from their bosses, even female bosses. The idea that we can do it all is not true. What I tell patients is that there’s never a good time to have a baby, never. You just have to prioritize yourself. You’re here for a reason, so do what you want. This is your one life to live, and if you want to have a child, that’s more important than the business trip you have to go on next week. And yet they still delay their egg retrieval. That’s what stuns me: they finally make it through the doors of my office, they’re right in front of me, and they still delay because of something related to their career.

3. At what age does career ambition and biological fertility begin to work against each other?

Our egg quality is the best it’s ever going to be when we’re born. If you check your AMH, anti-Müllerian hormone, to see how many eggs you have left until menopause, and it’s normal for your age, say at 30, that’s great. Your egg quality is determined by age ^[2] and after 35 things really take a dive. That tends to be when women reach their peak in their jobs and expertise and are up for promotions. So 35 to 40 is a pretty critical time for fertility, and it happens to also be a critical time in their careers, which makes it really hard for women to choose to prioritize themselves and their long-term goals.

What I’ve told a lot of couples is this: if you don’t have any kids, and you’re starting out seeing me at 35 or 36 and now you’re having trouble, I ask how many kids you ideally want. If they tell me two or three, I say, we’re starting late. We know what happens physiologically, so let’s freeze some embryos. That’s a really important advancement in the technology that’s available: embryo banking. We can genetically screen them for chromosomal abnormalities. Each tested embryo has about a 65% chance of a live birth, again, no guarantee ^[3]. The best thing is to get pregnant naturally, but it’s a great backup option, especially for baby number two or three when you’re starting later.

4. What does chronic stress (the kind that typically comes with a VP-level job) actually do to reproductive health?

I’m in the Bay Area, and I see a lot of executive-level and director-level women who are dealing with stress and have one child but now have secondary infertility. That’s very common, and people don’t really talk about it. Or they’re having recurrent miscarriages. I think their lifestyle is a huge part of this. If you’re not sleeping well, if you’re not eating well, how can your body focus on getting pregnant? Your body is in stress mode, in fight or flight. So it’s important to have all of those things in place.

We have an in-house nutritionist who sees every patient, and we talk about supplements, diet, exercise and sleep. Sleep hygiene is huge. People don’t realize how many caffeinated drinks they’re having a day. I’m always amazed: “Oh yeah, and also those two energy drinks I have,” which is just double trouble. It’s a can lined with plastic ^[4], and then you’re drinking an unhealthy substance. Some of the women are very health-conscious, but they don’t realize how bad their lifestyle is for their fertility.

5. So what can every career-driven woman who also wants to have children do to proactively have both?

There are 5 steps that I recommend to make it super actionable.

THE GUIDE

The fertility guide that belongs on your career agenda

Egg quantity and quality are set at birth and decline with age ^[2], and Dr. Segal says the drop increases after 35. That falls in the same window as big promotions and career expertise milestones. Here is her five-step plan.

Step 1: Ask for an AMH test at your next exam

The anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) test is a simple blood test any GP or OB/GYN can order. It estimates how many eggs you have left. Dr. Segal says the sooner you check, the better (as even women in her 20s can have very low results). Her goal is to see this test asked at annual exams, next to the contraception question.

Do this: At your next annual exam, ask, “Can we check my ovarian reserve?”

Step 2: If the result is low for your age, see a specialist, whatever your age

A low result is a reason to talk to a fertility specialist now, not at the next quiet moment at work.

Step 3: Freeze eggs or embryos while time is on your side

Dr. Segal's most common regret story is a 43-year-old who says, "I wish I had come in my 30s." If you are already past this window, a specialist can still help. Freezing takes about two weeks ^[5] out of your calendar. Frozen eggs from your early 30s can make you your own donor later. If you have a partner, embryo banking is the other route, and embryos can be genetically screened before transfer ^[6].

Do this: Check whether your employer offers fertility benefits. Dr. Segal’s advice is to use them if you have them. Costs vary widely, so ask about options and employer benefits.

Step 4: Fix the daily essentials

Dr. Segal sees many executive-level women who have one child and then struggle to conceive a second. She puts lifestyle at the center: poor sleep, poor eating and constant stress keep the body in fight-or-flight. Every patient at her practice sees an in-house nutritionist, and they cover supplements, diet, exercise and sleep.

Do this: Count your daily caffeine, including energy drinks. Be health-conscious in your food choices and try to get regular sleep and exercise. Support your stress levels with yoga, meditation or therapy.

Step 5: Cut your exposure to endocrine disruptors

These are chemicals in plastics, pesticides and fragranced products, which Dr. Segal has researched for over a decade. Her message is that they are a variable you can influence, and that small changes add up. She cites studies where urinary levels of some of these chemicals dropped after just three days of switching products ^[7]. Dr. Segal also points to the documentary The Plastic Detox, which follows six couples with unexplained fertility ^[8]. A published pilot study of its participants reported lower levels of some of these chemicals ^[8] and four of the six couples enrolled later had a child (there was no control group so it shows a direction, not proof).

Do this:

• Buy organic produce when you can. Pesticides have been linked to lower sperm counts ^[9] and, in women having fertility treatment, to lower chances of pregnancy and live birth ^[10].

• Use a water filter, and choose stainless steel or glass over plastic.

• Avoid heating food in plastic and never microwave plastic containers.

• Choose fragrance-free personal care and scan products with the free apps Environmental Working Group or Yuka.

Your one action this month

Book the AMH test. It takes a blood draw, and it tells you whether you have time or whether this is the month to start the conversation.

Sources

1. University of Leeds, The Histology Guide: Seminiferous tubules & Spermatogenesis

2. NICHD, age and fertility

3. SART, Outcome Tables, 2023 reporting year (frozen embryo transfer with PGT-A, live birth per single embryo transfer)

4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Bisphenol A (BPA): Use in Food Contact Application, Updated 2014

5. Main Line Fertility, egg freezing timeline (clinic blog)

6. ASRM Practice Committee, The use of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, 2024

7. UC Berkeley News on Harley et al., Environmental Health Perspectives, 2016

8. Hua et al., “Targeting Plastic Exposure in Infertile Couples: A Pilot Intervention Study,” Toxics, March 2026

9. Harvard Gazette on Chiu et al., Human Reproduction, 2015

10. Harvard Gazette on Chiu et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2017

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A NOTE FROM YOUR CHIEF WELLNESS OFFICER:

I have been visiting Portugal since 2010. For many years, Portugal was an underground, best kept secret…”the California of Europe”. Before all the hype and fancy hotels and secluded estates, Portugal has always been a place for wellness refuge: (nearly) eternal sunshine, beautiful nature and a slow-life pace. Now with the rising wellness scene, I did what any self-respecting CWO would do: I scheduled an “offsite”.

This isn’t a list of fancy hotel spas. I asked locals where they actually go to unwind and built this guide with their inputs and dutifully tested each and every experience personally. Seven experiences and one bonus excursion, across Lisbon and just beyond.

As the French school holiday approaches, it’s a great time to think of your next trip and add these to your must-visit list.

SALDANHA

1. Core Values

Prescription — Pilates Studio (Saldanha)

Av. João Crisóstomo 55, 1050-128 Lisboa

Saldanha · Nearest metro: Saldanha

prescription.pt · @prescription.pilates: see for other studio locations

A full-body audit, set to a 2000s throwback playlist. Efficient, challenging, and somehow still fun.

2. Between the Lines

Tantos Livros — Bookshop

Av. Marquês de Tomar 1B, 1050-152 Lisboa

Saldanha · Nearest metro: Saldanha

tantoslivroslivreiros.pt · @tantoslivroslivreiros

Mostly Portuguese titles, but the vibe translates without a dictionary. Grab an espresso, sink into the couch, and let the shelves give you a read on the culture instead.

3. Power Pause

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian — Garden

Av. de Berna 45A, 1067-001 Lisboa

Praça de Espanha / São Sebastião · Nearest metro: São Sebastião

gulbenkian.pt · @fcgulbenkian

No meeting notes here. Just shade and permission to do absolutely nothing for twenty minutes.

4. The Refuel

The Happy Salad — Quick Bite

R. São Sebastião da Pedreira 51 C, 1050-208 Lisboa

Saldanha · Nearest metro: Saldanha / Picoas

thehappysalad.com · @thehappysalad.pt

Customizable, filling, and actually delicious, proof a working lunch doesn’t have to be sad desk food.

5. Face Time

The Face Only — Facials

Av. Praia da Vitória 18, 1000-139 Lisboa

Saldanha · Nearest metro: Saldanha

thefaceonly.pt · @thefaceonly.lisbon

After welcoming you with a waffle robe, a tea and a snack, you get a full facial with a scalp massage that makes you forget you had anywhere else to be.

PRÍNCIPE REAL

6. Temperature Check

Hot & Cold Club — Contrast Therapy: Sauna & Cold Plunge

R. da Palmeira 33, 1200-098 Lisboa

Príncipe Real · Nearest metro: Rato

thehotcoldclub.com · @Hotcoldclub

Two saunas, four ice baths, and a crowd young enough to make you feel like you’re at the cool kids’ offsite. Good food, great coffee, even better merch.

PARQUE DAS NAÇÕES

7. User Manual

Seena Integrative Health Centre (with Dr. Vladislava “Vlada” Artemenko)

R. das Musas 13A, 1990-165 Lisboa

Parque das Nações · Nearest metro: Oriente

seenacentre.com · @seenacentre

Officially, it’s called Lifebreath® Manual Therapy. Unofficially, it’s Dr. Vlada reading your body like a diagnostic report. She goes pressure point by pressure point, realigning what’s actually out of order and not just what hurts.

BONUS — OUT OF TOWN: MAFRA

8. Immersion Program

ATMOS Steam Center at DOMA

E.N. 8 Barras, Azueira, 2665-006 Gradil, Portugal

Mafra (day excursion, no metro access) · Nearest metro: N/A — car or taxi required

atmos-steam.com/portugal · doma.pt · @atmos.portugal

Mint in the pit, eucalyptus overhead, and a whole leaf-smacking body ritual.

Next time you’re in the market for a quick wellness jaunt, remember this guide!

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A note from your Chief Wellness Officer:

Yes, like many women of my generation, I am in my full-on, no-shame pivot era.

Is it a coincidence that I happened to have turned 40 this year, decided to change industries to pursue the endeavors I have always wanted but never had the courage to do so? Well no, not at all a surprise for a Manifestor.

For the un-initiated, that is one of 5 Human Design Types, as confirmed during my Human Design reading with Zazie Peltier, a Human Design practitioner based in Los Angeles. As a former marketing executive in the medical device industry, she had reached the level of success she’d been chasing but still felt unfulfilled. That’s when she turned to Human Design which gave language to patterns she’d spent years mistaking for weaknesses. She now works 1:1 with clients navigating career pivots, burnout, and major decisions and uses her practice to help people make choices from self-trust rather than external expectations.

I’ll admit, my first reaction to Human Design was to file it under astrology-adjacent and move on. I previously had some exposure to Human Design through an app that explained it via podcast-like audio clips. It was very clear but I didn’t ever apply it to my life nor did I ever refer back to the app again. But during my reading with Zazie, I was able to ask specific and personal questions and really enrich my own self-awareness.

Zazie explained that as a Manifestor, my energy is built for action, and that’s what powers my feelings. Turns out my pull toward independence wasn’t just restlessness. It’s literally how a Manifestor is wired, and definitely helps explain my midlife career pivot from corporate luxury beauty to integrative health and women’s wellness. Zazie also told me my Authority is emotional, meaning I only trust a decision once the feeling around it remains clear and steady. And the one thing that I’ve never doubted since my career transition was my decision to go into wellness. It’s felt right since day one, which, it turns out, is exactly the kind of signal I’m designed to trust. For me, it’s important to pursue “what lights me up” and this approach has truly driven me through a pretty seamless career transition.

Zazie’s insights helped me understand how I operate and the different strategies that can help me become even more impactful in my pursuits…and that is why Human Design goes beyond the “woo-woo” and can actually be used as a decision-making tool.

We explore more on Human Design in this week’s The Briefing below.

For the skeptic who dismisses human design as astrology, how would you explain what it actually is and why it’s useful?

Human Design is a very different system from astrology. It combines ancient observational systems and philosophies – the I’Ching, Kabbala, chakra system, and astrology – with modern science, to generate a unique graph based on your exact birth time and location.

Think of it as a practical framework that’s a lot like a user’s manual for your own life. It shows you how you’re uniquely wired to make decisions, use your energy, and move through the world. It reveals your innate strengths, challenges, and the path towards fulfilling your purpose.

Once you start applying it, you start to gain a deeper sense of self-awareness, make better decisions, strengthen your self-trust, and direct your energy towards the things that matter. Human Design does not ask you to believe anything, it offers the tools to experiment coming into alignment with yourself.

But before we go any further, let’s define some basic Human Design terms:

• Type: how you are designed to interact with others in the world.

• Strategy: how you navigate life according to your Type

• Authority: your unique decision-making process

How is human design relevant to career decisions and pivots?

This question hits home! You and I have both recently navigated major career pivots.

Any significant career decision brings up doubt, uncertainty, and fear, especially once you’ve established yourself as an expert and built real professional success. It feels like there’s a lot to lose. Human Design supports you through this kind of change so you can stay true to who you are while still getting where you want to go.

During a transition, you’re making both big and small decisions constantly, and some of them are genuinely hard. You get stuck between what you want to do and what you should do. The mind wants to keep you safe and comfortable, and tends to side with the “should”. The bigger the decision, the louder the voice gets. Human Design gives you a reliable decision-making process that’s unique to you. It lets your intuition lead instead of the noisy, conditioned mind hijacking the process.

It also reveals how your energy works. This can be used to understand how you attract opportunities, where to find them, how to recognize the right one when it shows up, and how to put yourself out there in a way that resonates with others. It tells you what clues to watch for that signal you’re on the right path, or that perhaps it’s time to reevaluate.

Put together, this becomes a powerful strategy for pursuing your goals while staying true to who you are. Rather than copying someone else’s version of success, you create your own. Your career becomes a reflection of who you are, which is a far more powerful place to build from.

What patterns do you see in clients who are feeling misaligned, especially in their careers? Is there a specific Type that tends to end up in that place?

Misalignment shows up differently for everyone, and I see a few things repeatedly such as symptoms of burnout, feeling like their current role or environment is limiting their potential, or feeling like they could be making a bigger impact somewhere else. Usually, at the root of it, there’s a mismatch in values between the client and the company, industry, or role itself.

These are high-performing, ambitious women with high expectations of themselves, who are used to achieving. They know they want a change. What stops them is fear of the unknown, of “wasting” the time and effort already invested, of failure, plus the very real financial obligations that come with the life they’ve built.

They’re stuck and want help seeing the possibilities that exist, along with guidance and accountability to move toward them. They want more fulfillment and inspiration, and they want their work to be an extension of who they are, rather than separate from it. Living out your Design gives you the map for getting there.

Can you walk us through how you’d use someone’s human design to help them think about whether to stay, pivot, or leave their career entirely?

We always start with their professional status. I want to know how they feel about their job, and the change or clarity they’re seeking. It depends on the person in terms of where they are, where they want to be, and the gap we need to close. We use Human Design in all three scenarios, yet the focus and strategies shift depending on the outcome they’re after. If someone doesn’t yet know whether they want to stay, pivot, or leave, that clarity becomes the goal of the session.

From there, we look at whether they’re living according to their Type. Maybe they lack recognition for the unique skills they bring. Maybe they lack the autonomy to initiate and run with their own ideas. Sometimes there’s room to fix this within the current role. Sometimes it means moving to a different one. Sometimes it means doing something completely different.

We use their Strategy and Authority to identify favorable opportunities and make decisions that are correct for them, rather than decisions that look good on paper.

We also talk about their conditioning, which is how they are influenced and pulled away from what they actually want, often without realizing it. This is where people get stuck running the same loops, or doing what they “should” do instead of what they want to do. Bringing language to this enables them to start moving past it.

Finally, we get specific about their strengths, because the plan we come up with only works if it’s built on who they actually are. When a client is in congruence with their design, that’s when they become more visible and magnetic in whatever they’re moving towards.

You’ve navigated your own pivot. What did your design tell you, and did you listen?

I am all too familiar with career pivots, having navigated my own. It was a really big and scary decision to quit my thriving career in medical devices. I had worked and fought so hard over the years to get to the place I was in. I felt stuck, burnt out, and depressed – a tough combination when you want to make a change. I also felt deeply unfulfilled and disconnected from my purpose.

I was introduced to Human Design during a really difficult period, and it changed my life. Everything clicked in that moment for me. I was shocked at how accurate it was and it explained so much of how I had gotten to this point.

I realized I had been running on old programming and beliefs, inherited from the people and environments I had been surrounded by. My Design showed me that I was a Manifesting Generator, the type of person who has an unlimited supply of regenerative energy to build things. I was very aware of this, although I had gradually lost this energy over the preceding ten years. Had I known about Human Design, I would have understood that this was an important signal that something was wrong. I chalked it up to my age (even though I was only 30), the nature of my job, and the price you pay to move up the ladder.

It’s vital for me to work on something that excites me. Growing up, I learned that a job is a job, you don’t have to like it. The title and material success are what matter most. I had to learn to let go of this old programming. I also had no idea what I wanted to do, or what I could do. I had no idea where else my experience would be of value, outside of medical devices. Human Design helped me rediscover the things I loved doing, as my life had centered around my profession and the people in it. I kept following the crumbs life would give me, and trusted the path, thanks to Human Design.

I had fully committed to aligning my life and career transition with my design. I was unwavering in that. I started taking classes to learn about Human Design and using my Authority to decide whether I’d keep enrolling in the next course or not. Those questions about whether I should be doing this, what it would do to my career, and what would happen if it didn’t work out popped up, and yet I trusted my Strategy and Authority to continue, as it simply felt right for me. There was no mental explanation for it.

I ended up loving it, was genuinely fascinated by it, and as I kept following my Strategy and Authority, I officially launched my practice. Now I only focus on what I want to do, on what brings me joy, because that’s what keeps me aligned with my own design.

What’s the most practical thing someone can do with their human design today, without hiring a coach?

The most practical thing you can do on your own is to generate your Human Design chart. I provide a free chart calculator on my website, which includes information on the key elements you need to know to get started. Your Type, Strategy, and Authority are the most important and foundational aspects to understand. This is where everyone starts their practice.

Once you know your Type, Strategy, and Authority, begin to experiment with them daily. This becomes a practice in developing greater awareness and self-trust. At first, it’s likely you will feel at odds with your design. Over time, it will start to feel more natural. Living your design is a process that requires curiosity, patience, and conscious practice.

*There are a lot of great educational resources online about Human Design, and it’s important to know that some remain true to the source of this body of knowledge, while others may have been re-interpreted. Make sure it’s a reputable source.

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Consider this your referral bonus: Zazie is offering the first 10 readers* to book their Foundation Reading $50 off with code STATUSCWO50. Book here.

*Offer limited to the first 10 redemptions. Code valid through November 4th.

Who has had a Human Design reading before and how has it helped you decide your next era?

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What does it mean to be “well-read”?

I ask myself this because although I know that reading is an essential part of a good wellness routine, that it feeds the spirit and the mind, it is often the last things we have time for when our plates runneth over.

When I was in corporate, I never had time to read (er, never “made time” to read), but I had big ambitions to read anyway. I would basically force myself to sign up for book clubs in order to have the peer-pressure accountability to read. Most of the time, I was too sleep-deprived and fatigued and would fall asleep immediately, barely making a dent in the book. But my intention was in the right place.

This is why I am actually proud that I have gotten through the majority of these five books, some started over the summer and a few that I’m still finishing into the fall. And after all the digital reading we do today, it feels so good to actually touch a physical book.

So here’s what made the list, and why:

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1. The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, reminds us that we are all creative, every single one of us. Often women in business, even those in creative roles, can forget that their creativity can be channeled into something other than a commercial use. This book is an amazing reminder and exercise in reclaiming our creativity. The morning pages became a daily ritual, and that really helped me get back into writing, which I needed to start this Substack.

   Why now: Fall is its own kind of reset. This is the book for reclaiming a part of yourself that work alone will never ask you for.

“In a sense, your creativity is like your blood. Just as blood is a fact of your physical body and nothing you invented, creativity is a fact of your spiritual body and nothing that you must invent.”

2. Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke, is juicy escapism. What’s interesting here is there’s a creator economy story weaved into the bigger conversation about women’s roles and our collective values regarding family, privilege, religion and public vs private selves. No spoilers, but if you have been hesitating to read it, I do recommend it. It made me think differently about roles women do or do not choose to inhabit.

   Why now: a purely escapist read before the fall workload piles up.

“When Reena finally gave birth, when she finally looked around and realized she’d made it —she was at the top of the mountain, she had it all!— the landscape would look like this: her husband no longer wanted to touch her, and her boss no longer wanted to promote her, and her childless friends no longer wanted to spend time with her, and her friends with children no longer had time to see her, and Reena, sweet precious Reena, would complain about none of it, not the disappearing husband or the flailing career or the crushing loneliness, not a word of it to anyone, because she would technically be one of the lucky ones […] . You don’t get to complain about privilege.”

3. Rest Is Resistance, by Tricia Hersey, is the anti-hustle culture manifesto that is a constant reminder that rest is a right. I need to unlearn years of “grinding” and self-inflicted sleep deprivation and this book is my guide. It truly does the work to remove the guilt/shame from allowing ourselves the time and priority to rest and recover.

   Why now: Q4 is “work harder” season. This book is the voice in your head to remind you that you only have one body and that your rest (and therefore your health) is sacred.

“To no longer be ravaged by this culture’s incessant need to keep going no matter what to produce at all costs. This is why we rest. Grieving the reality of being manipulated to believe we are not enough, divine, or valuable outside of our accomplishments and bank account is a central part of our rest work.”

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4. Start with Yourself, by Emma Grede, has been buzzing in the press for Emma’s point of view on work-life “balance.” Personally, I just love her candor when addressing topics like managing your emotions, money, career, family, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Especially with her street smarts and the impressive roster of people she quotes, it’s definitely an essential business book for our era. And the textured cover is quite nice too!

   Why now: if you are reassessing what you want from your career, this is a must-read.

“If we don’t have a boss, we will frequently invent one to subordinate ourselves to someone who knows better […] I want to acknowledge that this is not a good way to live, nor is it an efficient use of energy. We must stop giving other people permission over our lives. We need to shift our mindsets. We cannot let strangers dictate how we feel. Instead, we must learn how to manage our emotions so we can stay calm, centered, and in control over the right next step.”

5. The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker, is her book on how to get the most meaning out of gatherings, perfect for fall, when we start to invite others into our home or are invited into others’. Whether for business or leisure, I find her book super well-researched with lots of real life examples and, actually, conversational.

Why now: in our increasingly fragmented and isolated world, a book on how to enrich our connections needs no further justification.

“Behind the ethic of chill hosting lies a simple fallacy: Hosts assume that leaving guests alone means that the guests will be left to one another. Many hosts I work with seem to imagine that by refusing to exert any power in their gathering, they create a power-free gathering. What they fail to realize is that this pulling-back, far from purging a gathering of power, creates a vacuum that others can fill. Those others are likely to exercise power in a manner inconsistent with your gathering’s purpose, and exercise it over people who signed up to be at your—the host’s—mercy, but definitely didn’t sign up to be at the mercy of your drunk uncle.”

If you've read any of these, I want to compare notes!

A Note from Your Chief Wellness Officer:

My relationship with food is not one I have spent a lot of time thinking about. When you grow up in a Haitian home, you eat what is placed in front of you. In hindsight, I am so grateful for these delicious, varied and balanced meals because I grew up in Miami in the 90s. Pretty much anywhere in the US in the 90s was full of mega food marketing, even to children. My mother always recounts this anecdote that when I was barely old enough to read, I could already recognize the golden arches of a McDonald’s from the advertising I would see. “McDonalds!” I would yell from our driving car.

Fast-forward to my early adulthood, when I moved to New York for my first job out of undergrad. I was living in the West Village with a roommate and a tiny fridge. I was very cash-conscious and I remember making a list of my groceries and comparing the prices between a regular grocery store, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s won by far. I strategized my meals to account for all the late nights I was spending at the office. And that’s how I eventually learned, after eating a can of Trader Joe’s black bean soup, that my nickel allergy my mother always warned me about for my earring choices had evolved to full-blown food allergy. Anytime I would forget and eat canned ingredients (tomato sauce on a 99-cent pizza slice, tuna from a picnic salad, coconut milk from a Thai curry takeout…you get the drift) my face and neck would break out in a full-on dermatitis rash. So I began (out of pure obligation) to get hyper-mindful about the sources of all the ingredients in my food and I started cooking more fresh ingredients. And I am so thankful for this wakeup call that “you are (essentially) what you eat.”

By the time I moved from New York to Paris in 2021, I was in my full-on organically-sourced, “food as medicine” worldview. France in general has a special relationship with food and moving to France has made me very aware of how different the food marketing landscape is. Fresh food markets are a weekly occurrence in almost every Parisian neighborhood and food advertising always comes with a small warning caption that you should prioritize a balanced and healthy diet. But this doesn’t mean that all my food choices miraculously became healthy ones. Especially in a corporate setting with travel, work events and busy days…food choices can be hard. And it is in this context that I met Julia.

Julia Belluz is a Paris-based journalist and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, where her reporting spans medicine, nutrition, and global public health. Beyond spending years as Vox’s senior health correspondent, Julia has also written for the BMJ (a peer-reviewed medical journal), the Economist, ProPublica, and the Times of London.

Her latest book, Food Intelligence, co-authored with renowned nutrition and metabolism scientist Kevin Hall, tackles decades of diet mythology to explain what we actually know (and don’t) about food, weight, and the systems designed to shape both.

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What compelled you to write a book about food intelligence?

I had struggled with my weight, and tried every fad diet you can imagine during my teens and 20s. I always felt like my failure to lose weight then was a failure of will power, which was confusing because in many other domains of my life, it seemed I had limitless will power.

When I started to write about chronic, diet-caused diseases like obesity and diabetes, I realized I was not alone. So many people were struggling with food. And when I started to look into what was causing the surges in obesity, diabetes, and other diet-caused diseases in America and around the world, it became clear that individual failures of will power had nothing to do with it.

What changed in the time these diseases became widespread was the corporate takeover of the food environment. Calorie-dense, hyper-palatable, ultra-processed foods became ubiquitous, and replaced whole foods in our diets. These foods disrupt our ability to regulate our appetite, and drive the craving and overeating that eventually leads to diet-caused diseases.

I wanted to unpack how all of this happens, and shine a light on how the modern food environment transformed in ways that heavily disrupt our innate nutritional wisdom, our food intelligence!

What's the one piece of nutrition advice you'd want every busy professional woman to unlearn immediately?

There are so many! But I guess what I’m most skeptical of are the ultra-specific bits of supposed “wisdom” and diet hacks that fill social media – eat more of this superfood, combine these foods for longevity or perimenopause, etc. Because nutrition and food are so mind-bogglingly complex, it’s really hard to design studies about how a particular food or even diet impacts long-term health or one health end point. And while we know a lot about the minimum nutrition requirements for survival, we know very little about optimizing nutrition for trending topics like perimenopause or longevity.

That means we simply don’t have good research to back many of the super specific claims influencers make. I also worry this advice confuses people and distracts from what we know matters for our health. That is a dietary pattern that features lots of minimally processed foods — vegetables, fruits and legumes, whole grains, fiber — and minimizes unhealthy ultra-processed foods, while also limiting sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.

Your argument is that this isn’t about willpower but that it’s the food system working as intended. What does that actually mean for someone standing in a Pret A Manger or ordering an Uber Eats at 1pm between two meetings?

Keep it very simple! Choose the most minimally processed, nutritious option you like. So the hard-boiled eggs and salad, instead of the ultra-processed pizza-pocket thing. Have the fruit for dessert instead of the pudding. Drink water with your meal, not sugary soda.

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If someone has five minutes to make a food decision and zero mental bandwidth left due to decision fatigue, what's the one question they should ask themselves?

Is this a meal that’s going to make me feel good, and satisfied, or is it just going to drive craving and cause me to want to eat more? Choose the meal that will do the former.

What’s a “healthy” food or habit that’s actually just marketing, and what should replace it in a busy woman’s mental shortlist?

A lot of supposedly healthy granola bars are thinly disguised junk, filled with sugar, calories and other additives. The same goes for many commercial smoothies, detox juices and meal-replacement drinks.

I’d replace all of these with fresh, whole food wherever possible. Yogurt with fruit, seeds, and a little honey in the morning instead of the granola bar. Instead of a detox drink or smoothie, eat some chopped vegetables, fruit and nuts for your snack.

Researching this book made me think more about the structure of the foods I eat and feed my kids. Intact, whole foods are nutritious not just because of the vitamins and other nutrients they deliver but because they have fibrous structures that nourish our digestive systems in ways that heavily processed — sometimes called “pre-digested” foods — can’t and don’t.

Your past reporting has addressed how food companies design products to be irresistible. Do you see a parallel with how today’s work environments override our own signals for “rest and digest”?

Oh totally! I think about the modern food environment as just one of the places where we are pushed to ignore our body’s signals, or the signals become so warped they start to work against us. Smartphones and social media are another such space. How many times have you laid in bed, totally exhausted, your body desperately in need of sleep, but you can’t stop scrolling?

If someone reads your book and takes away just one belief shift, what would you want that shift to be?

Many of our food choices we make happen below the level of conscious awareness, so you need to do your best to redesign your individual food environment so that the healthy choice is the easy choice. That might mean keeping the foods that cause craving out of the house and office, or if you do have some, keeping them far away from the kitchen and your desk. Feature the healthy choices more prominently – so the bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter. Also: Don’t be so hard on yourself. We now live in food environments that are entirely rigged against us making the best choices for our health. It is hard work fighting against that toxic environment and many people struggle. In a few words: it’s not you, it’s the food.

Once mastered, what would "food intelligence" look like for the woman who travels for work, is forced to skip a proper lunch to stay on client calls, and eats dinner late on average three nights a week?

This is a situation many women face, and a real challenge but not impossible to overcome. It requires thinking about how to create the healthiest food environment you can, given the limitations you have. Maybe it means packing meals and snacks everyday, or if you can, hiring someone to do that work for you, and then planning small breaks to simply eat before you’re famished. Maybe it means doing the late dinner once a week, instead of three times a week, and changing the other dinners to walking meetings or a glass of wine. Maybe it also means lobbying in your workplace to shift the culture so that it’s not impossible to do the basic act of feeding yourself nourishing meals.

What's something you personally no longer worry about food-wise now that you've spent years inside this research?

I try not to obsess too much over the small details. So the cake I ate on the weekend, or the extra serving of pizza I had at the office party. What matters most for health isn’t the single food, or meal, but our overall eating pattern. And if I’m generally eating in a way that reflects the boring but sound diet advice — lots of fruit, vegetables and legumes, not so much sugar, salt, and saturated fat, limited ultra-processed foods— I’m not going to stress!

For more from Julia: see her substack and the Food Intelligence book, co-authored with Kevin Hall.

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→ September 4-6 at The New Well: the ultimate summit for Paris wellness-seekers

^{Disclosure: this is an independent appraisal based on my personal opinion and experience.}

The French pharmacy did more for global beauty than most marketing budgets ever could. It aggregated best-in-class products, supported by expert pharmacists who could explain the singularity and exact usage for each product. Suddenly the whole world was flying to Paris with a shopping list, scouting for corner shops with that emblematic green cross.

The New Well feels like it’s trying to do the same thing but for wellness. As one of the first conferences/tradeshows of La Rentrée, they hosted their third edition in Paris last week: 3 days at the Carreau du Temple in the Marais, featuring over 120 brands. And new for this edition was a Business Summit with founder/CEO talks alongside the usual trade show and festival. More than 6,000 people came out and I was one of them…notebook in hand, and my “P&L” hat on.

→ Proof I did my homework

That’s the format for today’s post: a curated report on what’s actually worth your attention in wellness right now, plotted on a map so you know what to invest in first.

Every P&L runs on two axes:

• Vertical: love on top, like on the bottom: always how I actually felt about it.

• Horizontal: low investment on the left (under €50), high investment on the right (above €100): what it costs you to find out for yourself.

Please note: I only rate “like to love” because I don’t want to waste your time or mine reviewing things that I don’t like and are not worthy of our time or funds. (And when I haven’t tried something yet but I am interested, I will clearly state that).

So that leaves us with 4 quadrants:

• Best ROI (love + low): the best return for the least money invested

• Blue Chip (love + high): pricier but with bigger returns

• [Quiet Win] (like + low): solid and worth trying

• Pre-Seed (like + high): I am intrigued or excited by the idea but haven’t verified it myself yet so these are ones to keep on the radar and watch.

So here is everything that earned a spot on the board:

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Best ROI (love, lower investment)

1. Aime — Collagen Tripeptide Discovery Kit, 5€
   I heard the very end of Mathilde Lacombe’s talk at the Future Summit’s Vision Stage: super interesting discussion on whether brands still sell products or if they are now building “systems of belief, belonging, and desire”? Mathilde is the co-founder of Aime, a brand that looks at beauty from the inside-out, specifically with supplements. I went to their site and really love the collagen tripeptide discovery kit: it’s a way to remember to sneak collagen into your morning beverage, all-in-one. Five euros, to try the 3 flavors before you buy the full size (but also great for travel or even as a small gift). And for those of you not fully convinced by collagen supplements, I found this article from Harvard helpful. Can’t hurt to try, right?

2. CECILY BRADEN — The Lymphatic Brush™ (Small), $74 (≈ 64€)
   I was first introduced to this brush after a facial with Melinda Bognar (more on that soon). But a friend of mine, Stephanie Delattre, actually showed me how to use this tool and now I try to do a quick face drainage every morning. As there was a promotion at The New Well, I got the small and large duo in a great travel kit. But if you just want to try it first, I really recommend getting at least the face one and finding a good “on-self” tutorial like this one.

3. HYDROLITE — Coco, 29.95€ for a pack of 12
   After the Paris heat waves, I have been trying to ensure I get enough electrolytes. Founded by Jeanne and Lucas, Hydrolite was born out of their own struggle to stay hydrated when their schedule barely allowed for it. They describe it as a “functional hydration drink, designed for busy days, with a clean formula that’s not too sweet and is pleasant to drink.” I spoke to Lucas at their The New Well stand, who explained that they take reverse-osmosis water and enrich it with electrolytes and add a very lovely coconut flavor. I don’t often drink canned drinks but I tried it and found it to be super light, super fresh and delicious.

Blue Chip (love, higher investment)

4. PRESTESSE —Liane Top (120€) + Pants (210€) = 330€ for the set
   I fell in love with the brand and the founder, Coralie, at her stand. She's a former Dior designer who had a lightbulb moment when she visited a factory while pregnant and was told the dyes were too toxic for her to enter the space. She started thinking about all the microplastics in everyday activewear and underwear, and Prestesse was born. I went gaga for this chartreuse set but the entire range of earthtone colors is truly beautiful. Plus the fabric is super comfortable and soft with very quality natural materials. And knowing that it’s free of microplastics gives me the type of reassurance that’s priceless.

5. HIGHERDOSE — Red Light Showerhead Filter, 627€ (EU) / $599 (US)
   I met Anthony of HigherDose at their facial mask activation. He took me over to the main device stand and showed me the various tools, including a Microcurrent Body Sculptor tool. But he absolutely convinced me on the idea of a red light shower head which he showed me on the brand’s website. It kills two birds with one stone: red light is meant to help with inflammation and muscle recovery, so imagine getting all those benefits but while you shower. And for the time-poor, it simplifies the routine instead of adding one more thing. I haven't invested in this personally, but it's on my wishlist (hint hint).

Quiet Win (like, lower investment)

6. The Women Circle — Meno Focus, 36.90 CHF (≈ 39€)
   I spent quite a while chatting with the founder, Dr. Joëlle Zingraff-Wolfrath. She’s a veteran of supplement manufacturing and has just launched her own brand, The Women Circle, focused on (peri)menopause symptoms. Based in Switzerland, she sources the best ingredients and leverages her expertise to work with the best manufacturers. I was impressed by her knowledge and passion. I bought Meno Focus with centella asiatica extract, Greek mountain tea, Vitamin B5 and zinc for cognitive clarity. I’ve tried it a few times this past week, so I need more time to assess, but I already like that I at least remember to take it!

7. LAVOINE — Heure Épicée, 12.90€ for 300g (5-7 breakfasts)
   Gergana is the founder of LAVOINE, an instant oatmeal with three flavors in the range. I tried the cozy apple cinnamon flavor . I really liked the packaging, and this is a great buy if you’re often on business trips with terrible food choices, or if you get to the office/co-work early and want something handy to eat on-site.

Pre-Seed (like, lower investment)

8. Lucis Care by Lucis, Biomarker Testing & Health Assessment Membership, 490€/year

   I heard the CEO, Maxime Berthelot, speak at the talk about longevity. It made me really keen to learn more about what he’s building with Lucis Care: an annual membership where you take two blood tests per year and are tested on a number of biomarkers. The idea is that between those two tests, you’re accompanied with a full plan and guidance on how to improve your health. I haven’t tested it myself, but it came up in a moms’ chat I’m in, so it was already on my radar. Will circle back, since I’m looking for baseline insights on my own biomarkers.

9. Welnest — At-Home Fitness Coaching, from 500€ for a 10-session pack (50€/session, after “crédit immediat”)

   Really liked the idea: an at-home fitness training service. This may be the norm in other big cities, but I hadn’t heard of this offer in Paris before. For the busy career woman, this leaves very little room for excuses to get moving. The coach comes to your home and can even bring workout equipment if you are missing anything. I asked if they had anglophone coaches and it seems like this is something that could be arranged if the request is made ahead of time. But if you’re willing to learn fitness en français, could be a good match.

But other than getting to hear interesting discussions and learn about new wellness products and services, what I loved most about The New Well was the spirit of the people I met. I tested a relaxing body lymphatic drainage with Victoria Delorée, ran into Melinda Bognar at The Lymphatic Brush stand and met several very cool founders. All were sincere about their purpose and generous with their time. Wellness is supposed to make you feel good and at this summit, people were kind and welcoming. Totally my vibe and it made me eager to return next year.

→ the kindred spirits of wellness

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→ can we just bottle up this summer vibe, please?

Last week was “La Rentrée” in Paris. This is a period that is bigger than just “back-to-school”. It’s what everyone (even the adults) refers to as the post-vacances big milestone…like the “new year” of the fall. And like New Year, it comes with its anticipations and goal-setting about how we can optimize our day-to-day lives, including our wellness.

I had a truly restorative summer. I spent it mostly in the countryside of Portugal with some beach and a bit of the city here and there. It was the type of summer where I could opt-in to socializing if I wanted, but could remain entirely wrapped up in a good book or writing my Morning Notes. And every day, I was lucky to have the time to truly build a new wellness routine that I am having trouble letting go of now that I am back in Paris. But that’s actually a good thing. It means the rituals worked as intended: to reset my nervous system and provide a sense of solace and comfort.

So in the collegial spirit, here are my top 5 wellness “electives” that I will be keeping this Fall:

1. Physical Education

→ The hills were alive alright!

I have my set workouts and running routes but I try to stay flexible depending on the weather, my cycle and my mood. Switching it up but with a plan. For fall, this would mean I may join a spontaneous text-invite for a run with my running club mates and switch out the pilates/barre/weights session I had planned for another day. Listening to my body is actually beneficial: mixing it up doesn't just prevent plateaus, it's tied to lowering the risk of a shorter lifespan, regardless of how much you already move.

2. Nutritional Studies

→ Same same but different

I’ve never been one to skip breakfast unless I was rushing for an early meeting and didn’t have time to pack one beforehand or grab something from the office cafe. But this summer I got really intentional with breakfast. While I waited for my overnight “fast” (basically 12-14 hours between dinner and breakfast) to end, I would get utter joy from preparing a multi-course “breakfast for the goddesses”. And while very un-French, a protein-rich breakfast isn't optional for midlife women…it's one of the simplest ways to fight muscle loss.

3. Extracurriculars

→ Yes, adults can have hobbies too

I am sure many of us working moms can relate to the Olympic sport that is anticipating, registering/queuing up for, then shuttling kids to their afterschool activities, but I am officially advocating for the same in adult size. I got back into tennis this summer after I stopped showing up to group classes last year because I was too stressed to enjoy it. Now mid-pivot, I am feeling amped to get back at it and I am not as rusty as I would have thought! I signed up for 10 duo lessons for the Fall to keep me accountable and engaged. And hobbies aren’t just an indulgence: they matter for healthy aging across sharper focus and cognition to IRL social connection.

4. Field Trips

→ A little bit of wanderlust never hurt anybody

Travel is so essential for inspiration for me. Even though we just got back, I am already making plans for little trips here and there. The novelty of discovering a new place genuinely helps boost mood and lowers stress hormones. When you start getting so caught up in work that summer vacation feels like it never happened, you can always look forward to the next trip.

5. Recess

→ Spontaneous open field picnic, anyone?

This summer, there were many days where I had absolutely nothing on the agenda. This is so rare for me and it was honestly so liberating. I need to incarnate this mantra: “unstructured time isn't wasted time.” And some days it just feels good to be a human being instead of a human doing.

*Extra Credit

No lesson or study here, just proof that noticing beauty in the small, in-between moments is its own kind of practice.

→ A little visual/aesthetic/creative fun

What are the summer rituals you are keeping this fall?

→ Me, literally climbing the corporate staircase

I recently left a corporate career in the beauty industry to start building something completely from scratch in wellness. And while the exact “what” of that something was initially a work in progress, the “who” and the “why” have been crystal clear from the very beginning.

I have spent the last (almost) two decades marketing to and innovating for women, and in the world of corporate beauty, “the target” was usually a sterile demographic or generational term belonging to a “tribe” or “persona”. But what drives me when I think about what I am building today, is that the woman that I want to address is a real, individual human, with idiosyncrasies and contradictions.

She’s the high-achieving woman who is serious about her career and just as serious about her wellness. She’s time-poor and ambition-rich but she’s not just busy for busy’s sake. She is international and intentional in how she moves through the world. She’s the woman who gives her all to everything and everyone in her life, but every so often needs a little nudge to remember to leave some “all” for herself.

I know her well…because I am her.

→ Opted for Cornell for its slightly more optimized degrees (Fahrenheit that is)

Like many self-made immigrant daughters, university was the big crossroads of my life, it was my ticket toward social mobility. Growing up the daughter of parents who left Haiti to build a better life in France, then in Miami, I knew by the end of high school that there was nowhere else to go but up. But having little exposure and zero connections to the world of white-collar professionals meant that my college major would determine many of the opportunities that I would be presented with going forward. Ultimately, I had a choice: pursue my love of writing as a journalism major at Northwestern, or go the slightly more vague Communication route at Cornell. Being climactically-inclined, I ended up choosing Cornell because somehow in my Miami-girl logic, Ithaca at least didn’t have the lake wind chill of Evanston.

And that is how my writing would eventually be applied to product concepts, names and taglines and later on (when I was a bit more senior), to strategic meeting talking points. When you are in global marketing, your writing skills are essential but not the main course; you’re chiefly orchestrating all the components of bringing a product launch to life. Despite this, my love of writing never went away, it was just never truly exploited beyond a single-minded, commercial use-case.

→ They say all the world’s a stage. This one had a dress code

My corporate chapter in beauty began and ended in luxury marketing within beauty licenses for high fashion houses. This was the glossy version of working in beauty that everyone thinks about. But in between there was a non-linear career move: a 4-year stint where I changed functions completely and moved from New York to Paris to join the Global Skincare Innovation team.

This move would awaken my curiosity in science, sharpen my ability to critically gauge claims and elevate my ability to evaluate formulations. I got to work with scientists from all over the world, listen to a rich diversity of consumers and search for skincare and consumer trends in Korea, Japan, South Africa and Brazil. But most importantly, it was during this time that I was first introduced to the term “Longevity”, and I found myself researching more and more in my personal time to go beyond the surface and see what it could mean from a biological and health standpoint.

→ Beach reading, but make it biomarkers

So right before I turned 40, when the gap between my values and my day-to-day felt like it was only widening, I took my own doctor-mandated medical leave (the result of years of accumulated chronic stress), as a turning point. This was the clear sign that my career pivot toward wellness had been a long time coming, and I channeled this newfound clarity to begin building something entirely on my own.

That something is Status CWO.

Status CWO is more than just a fun pun name. It’s a mindset shift: proof that an accomplished woman can change her status quo to get ahead of overwhelm or burnout rather than just recover from it. For me this isn’t just theory. I have lived that life, have been in those very privileged rooms, and know what is realistic and achievable to get to a place of sustainable wellbeing (all the while navigating the peaks and valleys). If that sounds familiar, pull up a chair.

→ Traded the slide deck for yoga by the pool deck

As I set off on this new wellness journey, I want to share what I am learning, the interesting female experts I am meeting and the compelling products, services and places worth exploring. You’ll notice that this publication borrows a little from the world that I spent nearly 20 years becoming fluent in. That’s by design. It's also my return to actual writing, something I didn't realize I'd missed until I picked it back up.

The goal is for Status CWO to become your go-to resource (with me as your dedicated Chief Wellness Officer): the one you can turn to for relevant and reliable wellness intelligence that takes into account the realities of being a woman in business. Whether you’re climbing that corporate ladder or creating your own. My dream is to build a supportive community of like-minded women in the process, who get that this isn’t just a “balancing” act but a constantly evolving endeavor. We want the wellness cake and the business pie too, and Status CWO is about living at the intersection of the two.

That was the intro handshake, nice to meet you!

There’s a longer version of how I got here that I’m still working out how and when to tell. I’ll save that one for later.