Today I am talking with Renata Joy. Renata is a personal trainer, nutrition expert, and the founder of Pure Joy Wellness—a community-based lifestyle brand that helps women over 50 improve their lives through fitness, nutrition, and self-care. A former Emmy-nominated television producer, Renata started Pure Joy Wellness to teach women the importance of taking care of themselves, and to show them how to regain their health and revitalize their bodies and spirits. She’s on a mission to change the conversation around aging, and to give women who have been left behind a voice. At 63, Renata is living proof that you can be confident and healthy at any age, and she’s created a space where women can talk about whatever issues they’re dealing with—everything from menopause, nutrition, and fitness, to supplements, skincare, and mental health.
Key points addressed were
- The philosophy and core values around Renata’s lifestyle brand and consultancy work in her company Pure Joy wellness
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with founder, nutrition expert and personal trainer Renata Joy. Key points addressed were the philosophy and core values around Renata's lifestyle branding consultancy work in her company, Pure Joy Wellness. We also discussed were not his current work and future endeavors with women over 50, a population that is largely underserved and under heard from in contemporary health venues. Stay tuned for my enthralling conversation with Renata Joy.
[00:00:33] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status for industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. Hi, everyone, and welcome back.
[00:01:32] I am your host, Patricia. And today I'm elated to be sitting down with Renata Joy. She's the founder, nutrition expert and personal trainer behind her website and her work. You can find out more about it. W w w dot. Pure joy, wellness dot com. Welcome, Renata.
[00:01:49] Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
[00:01:51] Absolutely, I'm excited to pepper you through. I was just telling you off the air you are the encapsulation of the proof in the pudding. And our audience will kind of understand what that means as I am. Pack everything with you. But before I do that, for everyone listening, if it is your first time listening, I will read a bio on. We're not set to kind of give you a foundation of where we're coming from. Before I start peppering her with questions. But first, a roadmap for today's podcasts. You can follow the trajectory in which I based my inquiry out of. I will first look at asking her not to describe her academic and professional history, kind of bringing her up into founding and developing pure joy, wellness and all of her work within that, and then will turn straight to unpacking the Web site to the particulars of the business, everything all the logistics for those early followers about the founding aspects, the who, what, when, where, how, why, founding cofounding, all of that. And then we'll turn towards the ethos and the philosophy behind the company culture and some of the theory there that I think that we're not to herself as a walking testimony to. And then we'll look at the goals and plans that we're not set has for the next one to three years. That is a dialog that has changed for all of us drastically with the advent of the COVID 19 pandemic. And then we'll wrap everything up with advice that we're not to has. For those of you who are looking to get involved with what she does, as well as emulate perhaps some of her career successes. So, as promised, a quick bio on Renata. Renata Joy is a personal trainer, nutrition expert and the founder of Pure Joy Wellness, a community based lifestyle brand that helps women over 50 improve their lives through fitness, nutrition and self care. A former Emmy nominated television producer. We're not a started. Pure joy wellness to teach women the importance of taking care of themselves and to show them how to regain their health and revitalize their bodies and spirits. She's on a mission to change the conversation around aging and to give women who have been left behind a voice at sixty three. Renata is living proof that you can be confident and healthy at any age. She and she's created a space where women can talk about whatever issues they're dealing with, everything from menopause, nutrition and fitness to supplements, skin care and mental health. So we're not. I love what you do. We have a lot of platforms that indeed have serious intersections and parallels. But before we get into unpacking your brand, your lifestyle brand and pure joy wellness, I'm hoping you can kind of give us a description of your academic background and professional life that kind of brought you to developing pure joy wellness.
[00:04:23] It's really interesting because my academic background really didn't have anything to do with what I'm doing right now. I went to school for radio, television and motion pictures. So that was sort of like my goal. I was going to be. Never thought I would be on to TV, which I ended up going into. I thought I would be and to radio, which music was always really, really important to me. I play piano and music with everything to me. So I was a disc jockey in the early eighties for Jazz Radio Station because I was very passionate about jazz, but went to school for radio, television, a motion pictures and did really, really well a week before I graduated. I got a job at my first television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a production assistant. Now, some would say if you think about this climate that we're in right now and back in the actually nineteen seventy eight is when I got my first job in television. I was hired because of affirmative action. So the television station needed to hire a black person and I knew that. And so going in and I was hired for that reason. But I was also qualified to do the job. So I went from a production assistant to a producer to senior producer to executive producer of a show called Evening Magazine. An Evening magazine at the time was the first show that had a male and female co-host. I know it's hard to imagine that now, but back then only men were posting television shows. And so this is the first time a male and a female co-host did a show. And so through that particular show, I traveled all over the world. I was one of the wall pickers at the Berlin Wall to knock that sucker down. And so I have parts of the wall. I got to spend some time with Anwar Sadat and Egypt because we went to do a story on him because he had an Arabian Egyptian horse farm. And so we went there and, you know, covered that kind of story. So I traveled to every continent except for Antarctica. After or even a magazine, I started working for NBC and I was working for NBC News. I worked there for a while, then came to New York to help start a network called America's Talking and America's Talking was embassy's answer to CNN because at the time, CNN was the only network that had 24 hour was the only 24 hour cable network. So at America's Talking, we were none of us knew when we went there what show we were going to produce. So we go we go there, we come to New York and we're sitting in this room and Roger Ailes was the head of the network at that particular time. And so we're sitting in this room and he hands us an envelope and they start playing the Mission Impossible music. You know, the Mission Impossible music. Yeah, they'll go, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. And so we open the envelope and we find out at that particular time what host we were having and what kind of show we were going to produce. So I got aging, Carol, an aging Carol. Who is the advice columnist for Elle magazine? She's been in the news a lot lately for other reasons. We took her column, advice column and we brought it to television. And we were the first show of the network to be nominated for Cable Ace Award. This is before cable and regular television merged. It was the Emmy Awards. We were cable ACE Awards. And the reason we were nominated for cable ACE Awards is because Jane had found a lump in her breast. And she was terrified. And the only reason that she would go and have the surgery is if we kind of followed her along. And so we ended up doing a story about what breasts mean to women and what it means to lose your breast as a as a woman. Did that mean that you're less feminine now? Anyway, we got this award. Here we are, this little itty bitty show of like five people and we're out in Hollywood on the red carpet. It was such a surreal moment. But NBC decided they were going to turn America's talking into what is now MSNBC. I opted not to stay on for news because I wanted to branch out from news. So I decided to leave and I went to Fox and worked for a little show called Fox after breakfast and Fox after breakfast. Was this really a wacky show in a six to five hundred square foot apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City? And it was the first show that kind of constituted the outdoor concerts, curbside concerts. Now, the Today Show is doing them on. Good Morning America is doing them. And if you add Tom Bergeron and Laurie Hubbert were the co-hosts at that particular time. Now, that show eventually was canceled. And then I went to The View and I was one of the original producers of The View at that time, it was Barbara Walters. Joy Bay Hard. Meredith Vieira. Star Jones. And Debbie Matenopoulos.
[00:09:58] I left The View. To start pure joy, wellness. So that's kind of the trajectory of my career.
[00:10:07] That makes sense to me a lot more so now. I wasn't I wasn't read in on The View. A lot of your other points I had my my crew had done some good digging. But from what I understand of pure joy, wellness, that transition makes a lot of sense to me. Did it to you then when you did it?
[00:10:25] Oh, it it it it kind of did.
[00:10:28] But tell me why it makes sense to you. OK.
[00:10:31] So I am an early I watched the first season of The View and this guy goes into my own testimony about coming up. The reason why I endeavored this podcast in the beginning was I, growing up as a young, strong feminist woman, was most moved and taught by most people like me hearing other women stories. Any stories. Kalinda's to astrophysicists? Yes, women sharing their stories and their platform and their voice was. It was like food and water to me growing up. And I did not have an oppressive household. I came up as a third generation feminist, but I couldn't get enough of it. It was I was, you know, the the society I grew up in deprived me on such a regular basis. So the view was something that I was anticipating as it was coming out. But for me, the. OK. So it's changed a lot.
[00:11:22] Get into any of that. And I won't fall.
[00:11:26] And I like I like shows I think shows that don't change die, you know. And I don't mind metamorphosis and that that's a whole different conversation. But the first season of The View for me. It kind of endeavored to do Oprah roundtable. Like I felt like there was like they were going to bring in. And I liked the kind of even though there were different levels within it, they had these multiple host formats. And I liked the idea of like this roundtable of women all coming together and having this conversation. And for me, it felt like, first of all, flagship of its kind, seeing I was the lieu of women in front of me instead of just a token one or two. Yes. Monumental the audience as well. You know, all of these like this this female kingdom moment. And then also it felt like even though the first season was a little bit more shy about how they coded it, they were really going to start talking about women like not women and men, but like women and issues that women dealt with.
[00:12:27] Yeah, I think I think the concept of the show was there were the opinions from five different generations.
[00:12:35] So from 20 on. What the reason that I.
[00:12:44] Decided to get out of television, which was twofold. One, I felt like there was a bigger purpose for me, right? As a child, I grew up in a family where I like to say, if you ever saw the movie Sixth Sense and they say, I see dead people. I grew up, I saw sick people and everyone around me was sick and my family. And it scared the crap out of me. And I really did not want to become sick. So as a child, I studied everything that I could find on exercise and nutrition and anything, any reason that I could prevent being sick like. Like my family. And so I got into television and went on to television. And while I liked it.
[00:13:35] I didn't love it.
[00:13:37] And what I found television to be for me, for me, I found it to be a very.
[00:13:47] I do want to say an abusive business, because I. I'm all about women taking care of themselves. And I just saw television being anti that. Yeah. Unhealthy food, long hours. You work yourself to the grind. You're only as good as the last thing you produce. You could have produced like a thousand award winning shows, but you missing one little thing on and you're berated. And I just was just like, this is just too much. So I was always drawn to a bigger, bigger passion and I really felt it was important for me.
[00:14:22] To teach women. The importance of taking care of yourself and also putting yourself first.
[00:14:32] I saw many, many, many, many women who who put their husbands first, who put everybody above themselves and they always put themselves last.
[00:14:42] And the generation that I grew up in, that was kind of the thing you were brought up to. You know, you you are the spouse that does the cooking and the cleaning. And I can tell you how to iron a shirt like crazy. My mom taught me how was shirt without creases in him and all that kind of. But I used to tell her, I said, what? I'm not going to be that, you know, I'm not going to be that woman who is going to be ironing her husband's shirts. But at the same time, I also grew up on the cost of the women's movement where it's like burn your bra. Hell, no, we're not going to do this anymore. And so I kind of saw both sides. So when I decided I was going to leave television, it's really interesting because I did not have a plan.
[00:15:27] I do not have a plan. I just was like, this is my passion and I'm just going to leave and I'm just going to do it. And that's what I did.
[00:15:39] So when you say you didn't have a plan, did you have an idea?
[00:15:42] Well, I mean, I knew I knew it. You've done it right? Well, I was going to be health and wellness related, and I knew it was going to be helping women get healthy. But in terms of what I know about business now and coming, you know, having a business plan and, you know, all that kind of stuff. No, that's not how I started. I just decided, OK, I'm going to do this. And my friends helped me. They're kind of like, OK, you can work with me. And through that, people would see me and I just organically started gathering a clientele and only until recently. To be perfectly honest, we only until recently did I really think about in terms of, OK, how am I going to market this business? I get a whole clientele without any marketing, without any funding, without any anything. Just by pure passion, believing and knowing that what I had and what I am here to do was much bigger than me.
[00:16:43] And it was so important for me, for women to understand their worth, their importance. Why why health was so important that without your health, your quality of life suffers. You know, I watch women and my family's quality of life suffer because they do not have their health. I didn't want any other woman to have to fall through that path if I could help it, if I could reach them, if I could talk to them.
[00:17:10] Yeah. And I think the quality of health is packaged in other ways. It's appearing beautiful, being fashionable. It's never for the happiness of love. But what I hear is that they I was thinking about it.
[00:17:22] So interesting. I would think about this. And I went back through my health journey and in my 20s, it was all about me being really, really fat. And how then can I be? And I did all these drastic things where I took like diet pills and I wouldn't eat because that was that was, you know, beauty, healthy, whatever. In my thirties. I learned weight training. That totally changed my body. But the eating thing was still not there in my forties, I started gathering and. OK. You got to do cardiovascular work. You got to do strength training. You got to look at what you're eating. And then I hit my 50s and I went through menopause and all hell broke loose. Everything changed when I went through menopause. So what I tell women.
[00:18:16] I see women who are exercise like my thousand hours a day. I don't. Their bodies look great.
[00:18:26] I don't necessarily consider them healthy, though. No. You know, I look at health. It's a balance of a lot of different things. You know, yes, you have to, you know, eat well. Yes. Movement is really, really important. Yes. You need to get sleep. Yes. You need to drink water. But you know what? You need to balance it all out. You know, it's like with anything if you're all here and all they are, you know, it's all about. I don't consider that very, very healthy. You know, you need to have connection with with your friends and your family and, ah, have some kind of passion for some type of cause or some kind of purpose. You know, all of those things for me encompass what it means to be healthy. And that's what I tried to teach my clients. So where I am right now, and the reason I like to focus on women over 50 is because as I started with my training and working with women and naturally I started hearing certain things, women started saying to me that we're over 50. They feel invisible. The health and wellness industry catered to women in their 20s, in their 30s and left this whole demographic out. Yeah, they were going through things like menopause. They were going they were empty nesters. Some of them were going through divorces because their husbands were, you know, leaving them for younger, younger women.
[00:19:48] They had careers. And now because of the shift in the way, you know, the corporate structure is, you know, they didn't want to pay them the amount of money that they were paying them when they could get somebody younger to do it for less amount of money. They were having hard times finding jobs and interviewing with people that were younger than they were and had less experience than they were. And so here are these all of these women. Who had no voice. Who had no place to go. Who felt invisible? Who felt. Work with. And I'm like, hey, we need to do something about that. Yeah.
[00:20:25] And so that's where the business is now focusing on that.
[00:20:29] OK, I want to get into for every of my earlier audience. I will cover it. Per your request.
[00:20:37] So when do you feel if there wasn't a confirmed time. When do you feel that pure wellness joy was launched? Did you take funding, including your own? Did you bootstrap? Did you have founders? Did it launch with a Web site or just a Rolodex of clients?
[00:20:55] So there was pure joy, wellness. That went for many years and then there was. OK, now I'm turning this into a business. OK, so in 2014 I decided, OK, this is really a bona fide business. This isn't something I'm doing on this side. This is a bona fide business. So the first thing I did was figure out the branding of the business. You know what that was going to be? What was going to be my brand promise? What? And so I came up with this thing. Well, one of the things I thought, you know, like what sets me apart from everybody else that's out there because there's so many health and wellness scorers out there.
[00:21:39] And the thing that set me apart was a thing that in the beginning I didn't want to say. And that was my age.
[00:21:50] So the thing that in the beginning, it was like, don't say that you're this age because that means that you're old. I said, No, no, no. That's my calling card. So what's my brand promise? My brand promise is.
[00:22:05] Be young because I'm like, I'm 63, so young. You know? Yeah, strong. I really want women to be strong in all areas of their life. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, to be strong and sexy. Every woman wants to still feel like, you know, hey, I have it. So the brand promise will be young, strong and sexy for life.
[00:22:28] That was it. So I started off by building the Web site.
[00:22:35] You were gonna say something? Yeah. Well, I was. I mean, I know I think you're going to get there with it. So I'm gonna hold back. Which I'm not sure I'm doing. And I just wonder this at a young, strong and sexy.
[00:22:50] And that cell into me, you're gonna you're gonna climb into the website. But first of all, did you decide that you were only going to work with people over 50. Up front? Was that something that was naturally happening in the kind of informal phase of, I think, wellness?
[00:23:09] I think that sort of naturally happened in the ongoing phase now. I still work with with women that are in their 20s and in their thirties. And they're but the bulk of my clients now are women that are 50 plus. One of the reasons that is, is because I'm over 50. So I think there is this parallel of what kinds of things that I have experienced that they're experiencing. What have I gone through that they may be going through now that I can share that experience with them?
[00:23:38] You know, I'm a mom on a grand mom.
[00:23:42] I've gone through menopause. I've lost my husband. You know, all of these things. I've switched careers, you know, all of these things that they are experiencing.
[00:23:52] I share my as well. So I I felt like they could relate to where I was and I could relate to them. So it was a natural sort of thing. The other thing is that I'm really good at listening. And they really needed to talk. They really needed to talk. And they really needed a place where they could settle and feel like that. There was someone there that was listening to them because, again, society says once you're past 40.
[00:24:22] You know, basically, what's your worth?
[00:24:24] And so and a lot of women were feeling that way. And I'm saying, hey, I'm 63 and I haven't fallen apart. I'm sixty three and I'm still doing this. I'm 63. I'm still doing that. The other thing is to say that I'm 63 and say out loud and proud and not be like I'm 64. I don't tell anybody, you know. And say to women, be proud of your age. Be proud of the life that you've led. Be proud of that and not shrink down from it. So that's how that came about.
[00:24:56] Absolutely. Well, and I mean, if yeah. Those two things equate for me as an academic as coming from a family of academia. You know, if you've published 52 works and have three pages in your twenty seven.
[00:25:09] Yeah. You're kind of a sevi. You're not really you're not taken that seriously. You'd better be about seventy five instead.
[00:25:16] Yeah. I equate age with a lot of brevity that I want as well in this world. You know, if you meet a 22 year old that has four kids, it's like, ah, you've had kind of half life. You meet a 40 year old that hasn't seen a so those types of things kind of way out. And I think it's a reminder of that. It's weird in my Mother's Day, this, you know, this compliment that you look so much younger for your age. Why and why are those things attached to beauty and requestion ing? Those things I think are good. I'm curious how you tie in the sexy part, because I've haven't looked a great deal into menopause and I've had a lot of conversations with women organically when they talk about their career. They talk about menopause either approaching, going through or having gone through it. It plays into one's life in all aspects, regardless of how much we think we can hide or taught to hide from it. But the sexy aspect is something that a lot of women talk about when they when they have a successful outcome with menopause, even before experiencing a reclaiming, it feels that they have this relationship where they felt like they were kind of detached from it because the conversation, they couldn't have an honest dialog with their environment. And so they couldn't be sexy within that. And I'm wondering how you include that into your philosophical structure with your clients, because it seems like a more difficult aspect with women over 50.
[00:26:33] Well, it is. I struggled with that when I first went through menopause and my body went nuts, literally. It went nuts. And I went to my doctor and I said, what the hell is going on? She goes, Oh, you're going through menopause. You know, just, you know, exercise more and eat less. Well, I'm like, have you let me know what exercises work or better? And so then she said, you just have to deal with it.
[00:27:02] And literally my libido. Was non-existent. So I'm with this man who's nine years older than me.
[00:27:14] And we're not having sex anymore because I just don't. I don't have the desire. And so he's coming to me and he's saying, you know, what's going on? You know, you're not attracted to me. I was afraid to tell him that I was going through menopause because I'm kind of like, he's gonna think I'm old now. He's nine years older than me. And I'm worried about him thinking that I'm old. So. So I had to figure out how to get my body back and feel like myself again so that I could feel like I could have a normal sex life and I can have a normal relationship and not all of those kinds of thing. And that's where I talk about the sexy part. I think that every woman still wants to feel like that there the desire of their man's eye or the desire of their partners eye or whatever. They still want to feel like that they're a woman in every sense of in every sense of what that means. I remember the first time I realized my mom was a woman. And I was like, just, you know, that she had those wants and desires and all those kinds of things. So the sexy part I say, is recapturing yourself and feeling good and wanting to still have that part of your life. Like it hasn't gone away.
[00:28:35] Absolutely. And I think it's it's a crucial and integral one that a lot of people important look.
[00:28:41] Yeah. It's really it's really, really important, you know, the sexual beings of us. It's also important. And it's good for your health.
[00:28:49] Yes, it is. Health is really old. Optimal health is happiness.
[00:28:53] And from all different aspects, I agree. And I think that you do a good job of incorporating that. I want to pivot and go back to your Web site development and what? Because I think that so here is my assumption. And this comes from 20 years of, you know, sitting around Silicon Valley and kind of bird's eye view with very little invested myself just watching people develop businesses for 20 years. And my interest in it is that there seems to be a great deal of conversation that people have with their brand when they go into develop a Web site that they hadn't had before. He has even as tincture based as someone can think that they are, they've gotten to the core axiomatic principles of what their brand is when they go to develop a Web site. It is completely reanalyzed there because it's a it's a visual process. It's a noncommunist captive verbally. It's a you know, the whole platform changes like with any art that imposes on the other senses. And so I want to know if that happened for you, if it kind of fine tuned what your brand was as you start to develop the Web site and indeed take it from this informal to the formal brand. And if so, what things came out of that time period?
[00:30:01] The Web site is always evolving as the brand evolves. It will change probably in a couple of months somewhat to be more engaging towards my specific audience as I become more clear, as I became more clear on what it was that my target audience was. The Web site changes should go towards that. Like right now, the Web site talks about what we offer, but it doesn't really go into the specifics of where I'm really catering towards women over 50. I really want to change this conversation about aging. I really want to build this community, a community where women can, you know, meet up with other like minded women that aren't afraid, that are brave, to have real conversations about issues that that concern them the other day. I had everything going on in the country right now. I've started my community on Facebook. And one of the members says, hey, you know, I want to have a conversation about about race and racism, you know?
[00:31:11] And so people are thinking, well, why would I have a conversation about race and racism on the health and wellness, you know, lifestyle brand? Well, you know, that creates a lot of stress. I am a black woman. So I get a bunch of women together, half black, half or white. We have the zooming we have this intense conversation around race. I was really terrified that having to be honest with you, because I'm like, is that a hot button topic? But I'm glad that I did, because here are these women that are part of this community, the pure joy of this community. They want to have dialogs about different things. They're not women who are just you know, I'm interested in having a bikini body in six weeks. That's not who we are. That's not it. These are women who have live lives. They're interested in what's happening in the country. They're interested in politics. They're interested and in climate change if they want to have conversations about it. So we frame it in terms of how does it affect your health? You know, the race issue where the black women, how does it create stress in your life? Yeah, no, how does that how do you manage that climate change? How is that affecting you? Is it are you having clean drinking water? How is this affecting your life? And if it's affecting you, what can we do about it? So, you know, when when when I look at other brands that are health and wellness brands, they're dealing with things. And maybe it's because we're older, you know, because I'm older, because I have a broader interest. And I know that these women do, too, that our brains are not just a one dimensional, but they are mohie dimensional. We have lots of different interests. But all of these things do affect our well-being and it always comes back to that.
[00:33:02] I think I'll go back to answer your question. The Web site changes as the brand gets clear on the focus of who our target audience is and what it is that they actually want.
[00:33:19] Yeah, and as it changes, as you fulfill that, the dialog between those two. Absolutely. That should be ever changing.
[00:33:25] I'm as powerful as we talked about a little bit about The View. You know, I think that brands that don't change don't represent real people behind them. It's toilet paper. It's very rare. You know, it's not it's not a real thing, especially in service industry. People get into conversations about wanting strongholds and, you know, the Coca-Cola emblem and all of these things. And I'm like, if it's not changing and constantly being evaluated, it's not video walls because as human beings, we evolve.
[00:33:54] Like what I felt about health and wellness in my 20s is certainly not how I see it in my 60s. I mean, I can see elements of that. You know, I talk about like in my 20s, Jane Fonda was really big and everybody was following Jane Fonda. But Jane Fonda didn't talk about that. She was Billy Mick. No, that would have been a real conversation. Yeah. So everybody's trying to get to where Jane Fonda is without having all that information. Right. So would you say that was really healthy? It could have been if we would have had that real conversation, but we weren't having that conversation around me. Right. And how many women trying to.
[00:34:40] Buy into this norm that we're supposed to be a certain size and everything we did to try to fit into that size. You know, no one was really talking about that until Karen Carpenter died of anorexia. It was like, what? What is that? You know what I mean? So it's it's like. What I want to do is before we get to that, wait, let's have those conversations like how are how do you feel about your body? Yeah. You know, I know how I. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I look at my body and I ask. You know, I hate this, I hate this, I hate that. Other times I like up and I look at my my I'm like, I'm gorgeous. Yeah. You know, but there are a lot of women out there that are.
[00:35:28] Don't like the way that they look. I have women in their 70s bringing me pictures of what they look like when they were 18. And I'm going, really? This is this is your goal? Yeah. They're really framing it for them that, you know, when I look at my body when I was 18, yeah, it was great.
[00:35:49] I would look horrible like that right now.
[00:35:53] And you'd have to, Benjamin. I mean, the whole concept of looking how one wasn't emotionally. Do you really want your emotional state at 18?
[00:36:00] That's absurd. Thinking about people are thinking about that. That's that's that's the missing link. So it's like tying it all together. This is why I'm saying looking at the whole picture. Most people fragmented and they go, OK. Their body, they want this part, but they're not making that connection to be, you know. Well, what does that mean exactly? Like I've had I've had women say things to me and I'm going I don't I'm not connecting to that. And then I meet their moms and then I get it. So it's a complicated we're complicated, you know, creatures. And the the big thing for me, it's about acceptance. You know, getting to the point where. OK. You may not have thighs that are size zero, but your thighs are OK because they're moving you, they're taking you around in the world and you're getting around in that. And that's a beautiful thing.
[00:36:59] Yes, absolutely. I'm curious throughout that, because you have kind of this legacy. You started off informally and then went to this formal aspect. You have your hands in all the different parts from the business aspect to the emotional, the spiritual, the physical health. What are some of the trends that you've seen change over the past decade regarding all of those things, particularly in women, about 50? Like, have you seen a growth of like four interest, for example, interest in menopause or things of that nature change over the past 10 years? Like what? How is that industry and that presented?
[00:37:34] Are you're just now starting to talk about menopause? I think I saw there was an article that Vogue magazine published a couple of months ago about menopause being the new frontier in women's health and was like, oh, my God, people are starting to talk about menopause. I see other practitioners starting to really engage in that conversation around menopause, which I think is a really, really good thing, because when I went through menopause, no one wants to talk about it. Right. There was no one wanted to talk about. It was like, hush hush, you know, secret thing you don't you don't talk about. I think the more we open up or we expand and we talk about those experiences, like what is that like? What does that mean? Menopause to me in the beginning, it was very scary. Now I see it as an opportunity, you know, one I don't have to have a period a word.
[00:38:27] Thank goodness I have to go through that. But it kind of frees me up a little bit, you know, so I think it's important for us to start having that conversation. And when it starts going mainstream, you know, that the shift is the shift is coming. When Vogue starts publishing articles about menopause, you know that that shift is starting to come as more women are becoming older. You see things like people are starting to embrace being fifty, like the celebrities are starting to embrace being 50. Jennifer Lopez just turned 50. And there was a big thing like, oh, Jay loads turning 50. And so that becomes the conversation that getting older is not a bad thing. And a lot of celebrities are kind of embracing that. But then that brings on a different kind of conversation because women are going, well, I don't I'm over 50, but I don't look like that. Right. And and am I supposed to look like that at 50? And I feel like a failure because I don't look like that at 50. And what I say to that is, you know, we have to stop comparing ourselves to other women. Women are we're our worst critics. We have to go here. This is where I am and embrace where I am and be the best that I can be. And one of my favorite books is before agreements. And in the four agreements, there's this one thing that says always do your best.
[00:39:59] Knowing that your best is going to be different from day to day. But as long as you do your best. That's that's all you can ask for. And so if I'm trying to compare myself to Jennifer Lopez, I'm going to feel horrible. I'm going to fail.
[00:40:18] But if I only compare myself to me, then I'm kicking ass, I'm rocking it, you know? And so.
[00:40:26] I think that's bad.
[00:40:28] That's kind of where we are. So as the celebrities start embracing 50 then and they look a certain way. That brings on a whole other thing for women who aren't celebrities on what the expectation is supposed to be.
[00:40:43] And I'm saying. The expectation is all on ourselves.
[00:40:48] Yeah. And I've seen a trend speaking to that.
[00:40:50] I think that this is from my own personal testimony, but I'm 43 and I felt like when I started having children, I started relatively young because in the Bay Area, the average age from women starting to have children was in their thirties and I was 27. So as I was cutting that that curve, I it wasn't spoken about. There was very few baby clothes to choose from. Everything was incredibly sexist, everything. And then it felt like within seven years all of Hollywood started having children and the market just boomed.
[00:41:21] You can get organic diapers this year. It was this like a wakin strollers used to be really almost barbaric. And now our light and gorgeous machinery, like practically jogging coffee. Yeah. So the celebrities decide they're come up. Then it's like, oh, OK. No, it's OK. So I feel like female issues are slowly.
[00:41:43] And with that, what happens? Everyone starts studying birth, IVF. All of the new forms of family start to become talked about and engaged within accepted.
[00:41:53] And so I'm hoping that that comes with menopause as well, because we don't really study talk about menopause, you know, and that's the issue and all their lot talking about menopause, we need funding as well.
[00:42:05] No one studied it. You know, I had an M.D. go on record with me saying you don't understand. Like, we haven't even studied the female heart. We study a group of hearts largely are white men. And we say that's what we know about the human heart.
[00:42:20] There is like there are fundamental differences between male bodies.
[00:42:24] I know that I've spoken to women that were very angry. And they say, like when a man reaches a certain age, they develop that low blue pill so they could still get out and insurance pays for it. There is nothing for women in that regard. Absolutely nothing. So we have to learn how to figure that out on our own. But that's still the difference between men and women. As long as men are, like, empowered, they're thinking about themselves. They're not. We'll find out. Well, do we have to get there? We're where we are.
[00:42:59] And we're a campaign, you and I, we're gonna get there and all of us. And I'm wondering, moving forward with the future, because you've had this growth and you had this natural growth in the beginning and then you implement it and you're very good about being tangible and changing everything up and really listening to the community and your goals. Do you make goals for like the next one to three years? Is that the way that you look at the future and your company and your work? And if so, what are some of those now?
[00:43:26] Some of my goals are expanding the community. I really want to do sort of like a talk series, you know, have a place where women can come and have these conversations, bring in speakers and do that kind of thing. I also want to compile the Pure Joy Wellness Center. And that center encompasses all the things that, sure, joy wellness is so there would be an auditorium where we would have those conversations. There would be a test kitchen where you bring in different chefs and you teach how to cook, you know, healthy meals and also talk about nutrition and that kind of thing. They would also be, you know, a training floor for movement exercise, but also for mobility, because as women get older, more mobility and flexibility and balance is really, really crucially important. So there would be an emphasis on that. Then we have I'm I'm off or pampering and spa services and things like that, too. So I believe and, you know, face shows and the sizes and all those things to take care of yourself as well as, you know, meditation. We'd had sleep pods where women can come in in the middle of day where they just want to get away from their husbands or their kids or whatever. They can come in and take a nap, that sort of thing. And and like acupuncture and stuff like that. So it would be a place where women could come together. They can kind of hang out if they just want to hang out or they can participate and in all of those other things. So I believe in there being a very heavy educational component to it. This is why I would want to bring in speakers and again, have a place where women can come and they can really talk. I think there is this hunger for women to be able to talk about what they're feeling, what they are experiencing, what they're going through. And so that they don't feel alone and they don't feel invisible. Yes. Samantha and I really do want to change the conversation about aging being a bad thing.
[00:45:36] Yeah, I do, too.
[00:45:38] I think our key to happiness and because I know that it's happened is one after like we we it's going to happen. You can lie about it.
[00:45:47] But but but but we're still in denial of it. And I just want women to embrace it. And and, you know, and I'm gonna do that part to try to make that happen. Now, people say to me, oh, well, you can say that because you look the way that you look like you're 60 something, but you don't look like you. And this is all true. But. I've been working on it for a very, very long time, and a big part of that hasn't been my exterior. It's been my interior. Working on my from the inside out because I believe that the help from it. From the inside out. Not from the outside.
[00:46:23] Absolutely. Where will it be? The center. Which state. But the flagship will.
[00:46:29] I'm hoping for it to be in Manhattan. I've already done the renderings for it and all of that. My goal ultimately, if it works in Manhattan, we would kind of have it in different cities around the country. And it would be. Yeah. So it'll be a place where women over 50 to come to beautiful all mine.
[00:46:48] Bring here. San Diego or L.A.. I'll go for it. You bet. Yeah. Well we're not at we're out of time. We're off to my final question. And for those of you that follow the series, it's some of your favorites as well.
[00:46:59] And everyone knows it's one of my favorite things to ask. But I'm wondering, particularly with the most recent state of affairs, both with the pandemic as well as the social uprising and unease and things like that happening right now, I want all of those things considered in your answer, because I don't think it's fair to kind of do it in a vacuum. But if you are to social safe social distance tomorrow in a park or a garden somewhere and a young woman or female identified non binary individual, anyone other than kind of assist Ginger White man walked up to you tomorrow and said, listen, I'm so glad I found you. I've got this incredible background. I started off. I you know, I thought I was gonna go into radio. I went into television. I had this prolific career. I spanned multiple different enterprises. I flagship did a great deal of things. And then one day I up and on the heels of a great success, turned around and started my own wellness journey. And I'm just getting ready to kind of launch in and do that now. What are the top three pieces of advice you would give that individual knowing what you know now?
[00:48:04] Number one, make sure you're passionate about it. Because being an entrepreneur and starting a business is really, really hard.
[00:48:15] So you have to have that passion for when things because there are times you're going to wonder, you know, maybe I should go out and get a real job. This is so so passion is really, really important to.
[00:48:28] Find a mentor. Surround yourself with.
[00:48:33] Either other entrepreneurs or a mentor or someone who has walked that path. Because it's a lonely place to be. It helps when you have other people that understand what you're experiencing because your your friends really don't share you. It's a you need people that that understand. And the last thing that I would piece of advice that I would give is as long as you believe.
[00:49:03] That's possible, and you believe in yourself, then go for it, girl. Just go for it.
[00:49:09] Absolutely. I completely concur. And I think that people can hear those kinds of words and not really resonate with it. Believing is is everything.
[00:49:18] It's really I mean, every cult founder knew that.
[00:49:21] I don't know. I can't figure it out. You know, there are some people who probably have some evil, crazy things. Yes. All right. So I have no one.
[00:49:29] Make sure you're passionate about it. No. To find a mentor, you need a community. You need people to advise you as well. And number three, as long as you believe in it, go for it.
[00:49:37] Girl, that's so perfect.
[00:49:40] I love it. Run out. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. We're out of time. I'm devastated. I could talk with you all afternoon.
[00:49:47] You're wonderful.
[00:49:48] Absolutely. And for everyone listening. This has been Renata Joy speaking with us. She's the founder, nutrition expert and personal trainer. You can find out more about all of her endeavors and her Web site.
[00:49:59] W w w dot. Pure joy, wellness dot com.
[00:50:03] Thank you so much for giving me and us your time today. And until we speak again next time, remember to always bet on yourself. Slaínte.
