As we kick off Black History Month, I’m hoping you all will join me in shopping with Black brands and uplifting the Black entrepreneurs who are making it happen one sale at a time. Today, we’re in conversation with the founder of Mielle Organics, Monique Rodriguez, who shares her journey of becoming a successful CEO while balancing motherhood, mental health, and mission.
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The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Doctor Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for this special bonus episode of the Therapy Black Girls Podcast. We'll get run into our conversation after word from our sponsors as we kick off Black History Month. I'm hoping you'll join me in shopping with black brands and uplifting the black entrepreneurs who are making it happen on sale at a time. Today, we're in conversation with the founder of Mayo Organics, Monique Rodriguez, who shares her journey of becoming a successful CEO while balancing motherhood, mental health, and mission. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, Please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in session or join us over in the Sister Circle to talk more about the episode. You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation, Monique, Thank you so much for joining us today, so.
Much for having me. I'm super excited to be a guest on your podcast.
Yeah, absolutely so. I would love for you to share with our community a little bit about your journey to entrepreneurship. So you had us start in nursing and now or the entrepreneur and owner of Mayel, So tell me a little bit about that journey.
Yes, I was once a registered nurse. I worked in labor and delivery for five years, and the later half of my career I worked as a home health nurse. And during the course of my nursing journey, I've always had the entrepreneurial bug and wanting to get into starting and running my own business, but I didn't have examples of that when I was growing up. I didn't see that Mayel started from a place of pain. I lost my son in twenty thirteen from a high risk pregnancy, and I chose to channel that pain into my purpose and really decided to give my life to Christ, trust God and his leading and his guidance, and he has truly revealed to me my vision, which was to go on social media and to talk about hair, and that's how the brand got started. I began to document my hair journey from having severely heat damaged hair to wanting to nurse my hair back to its natural curl pattern.
And it took me over the course.
Of six months of using our world renowned Barbacue deep conditioner that helped me on my hair journey, and I shared all of that on social media and women started asking questions. They started gravitating to the information that I was providing because at first I started with homemade concoctions in my kitchen, and I quickly realized that there was a void in the industry and there were not a lot of education for black women on how to take care of their natural hair, and there wasn't a lot of products that really focus on ingredients and best practices. And with my health and science background, I was able to do a lot of research and leverage that information and create products that met the needs of the women that I was focused on and talking to at the time, and I was able to create content and create an experience that really focused on how we can educate, empower and excite our community to learn and understand how to navigate their natural hair journey. And so that's how the brand got started. And I knew that when I worked as a nurse that I wasn't living out my purpose. I really became a nurse because that was what I was encouraged to do growing up. My mom was very very traditional, go to school, go to college, get a degree, and you work that job until it's time for you to retire. But that passion that I've always had for the beauty space, it never went away. And with me going through what I went through with the challenges with my son, I used social media as a way to creatively express myself and I have built this online commune unity and I just realized that this is something that I want to do full time. And I knew that if I gave this one hundred and ten percent, that I will be able to really leave my nursing career and focus on how do I become impactful to the women that I serve and make their lives better, not just focusing on hair, but really it was about purpose and changing the lives of the women that came in contact with the brand. And that's something that is so near and dear to my heart because we always say at Mael it's purpose over profit, and what we do is so purposeful, is very intentional, and ultimately, I'm very vocal about my faith and I always proclaim and confess God, and I really like to look at what I do as well as like marketplace ministry, so people that may be lost or may not have a relationship with God, when they encounter or experience myself the brand, they will experience the anointing of God as well. So I look at it as an ultimate, bigger purpose as well. And I look at how my son came into this world, and even though he was here for a very short time, he has blessed and accomplished so much, and more importantly, he has allowed me to deepen my relationship and my faith in God. So that's like the story behind how the brand was formed.
H thank you so much for sharing that. I'm curious to hear how you went from such a big leap right because it feels like you are already making products in your home, but to go then from there to like having a product that is on shelves in stores worldwide. Where did you even start to kind of when you thought, Okay, I'm going to do my OL full time. Where did you start for like mentorship or guidance on that journey.
Honestly, I didn't have any mentors. It was my husband and I and we were literally figuring things out as we go. And I always say that entrepreneurship is the only job that you can have where it's on the job training, you're learning as you go, have no experience, but you can be very restored and make something out of nothing. And that's what we did. We got really scrappy. We were out there grinding and just doing the work. And along the journey we were able to connect and meet people. But when I first started, there was no one to show us the blueprint. We literally had to figure things.
Out on our own.
You know, sometimes when you think of a mentor, people think that mentor has to be tangible. It has to be someone that you can have conversations with on a regular basis. But because I didn't have access to that type of mentorship, I looked at mentors that I couldn't have conversations with. I would study their stories. I would listen to podcast interviews. So podcast was something that was huge as a part of my learning experience, just learning from what other people did and how they built their brands, and people became mentors in my head. Like I never had a full conversation or any conversation for that matter, but I was always a student and I'm still a student of life, and so I always tried to find motivation and inspiration from people that I may admire, and I learn and study them.
And that's what kind of helped me as well.
Is like studying what other people have done, how they have overcome challenges and problems, and how they have branded and marketed their company, and I take little bits of their nuggets and wisdom and I apply it to what I do. So that was what I did in the very beginning.
MM. That's helpful for other people to know, because you're right. I mean, there are people that I think we want to have conversations with and we're like, oh, if I could get twenty minutes with this person, But if you look at interviews and books they've written, they have likely laid out some of the blueprints for you. Yeah. Absolutely, So what kinds of things have been helpful for you, Monique in managing your mental health as an entrepreneur.
Oh my gosh.
What has been helpful for me in managing my mental health has been my faith in God.
That is first and foremost.
And I tell entrepreneurs this all the time that being an entrepreneur it is not for the weak at heart, and you have to have a strong, solid foundation, and that foundation starts with God. And that has helped me tremendously. When things go haywire or when I feel overwhelmed, I will go sit down in my closet and I will journal my thoughts and I will read a scripture and I will feel ten times better than I did before I went into that closet. So that has been very helpful for me. And also having a very strong support system has been helpful for my mental health. My husband, he's my business partner, he's the CEO of Mayel, and he is my confidente. He's my best friend and we have had to lean on each other during times and hard times to get through things together. So he has been a great support system and Obviously, my mom has been extremely helpful with my kids, and I don't have to worry about babysitter. My kids are big now, But when I was building a company, not having to worry about who's going to watch my kids or who's going to be there for my kids because my mom has always been there. And I would say limiting my time off of social media has been huge for me, like I have been on this journey as of lately, like really limiting my time, like I have gone days where I don't even check social media, and if I do get on there, I've set my time clock like I cannot scroll no longer than thirty minutes, and I have developed a habit of doing that, so now I don't even have the urge to want to go on there to like check in and see what's going on. And I replaced that urge of wanting to on social media and like be in the know with reading books. So I have realized that since I've started this journey, reading books and like taking myself into a different world like reading stories or reading self help books has really helped my mental to not be on social media. Because I was starting to notice when I would get on social media, mood would change afterwards, and I really couldn't pinpoint like I was feeling okay, but like now I don't like, I feel like off or I feel like irritated or annoyed. And I had to realize that it was because I was scrolling. And when you're scrolling on social media, you may see something that inspires you and it may make you very happy, but then the next image that comes right after that is something that makes you sad or something that you shouldn't be taking in into your heart and your soul. And because it's that algorithm of like you don't know what you're going to come across when you're scrolling, that can affect your mental and you have to be self aware in order to realize that. So when I started to feel like anxiety or I started to feel off or annoyed, I had to really evaluate, like Okay, what did.
I just do?
And I started narrowing it down to like, okay, I've just got off of social media. And so now that I have seen like limiting my time on social media, I have been able to be more focused, I have had more clarity, and I can really accomplish and do a lot more things because I don't have that up and down cycle of happiness and sadness all in like ten minutes of scrolling.
Mm hmmm. That's a good reminder, I think, because you're right, like, you can't control what you see a lot of times, even if you, you know, only follow certain pages or do certain things, you just never know what's going to pop up. So I think that's a helpful reminder for people. Yeah, more from our conversation after the break, So, what kinds of conversations are you having with your children around taking care of their mental health? What has been helpful for you and facilitating those conversations.
Yeah, so number one is leading by example, And I brought that up because I see it in my daughter, Like, I am not the one to push my faith even off on my kids. I will teach them, i will show them the way, I will talk about it very vocally, but I'm not going to push it off on them. I want them to be able to discover and have their own relationship with God, their deeply personal relationship with God, and not have it to be forced or pushy. And because I've just led by example and we go to church every Sunday, when we're in town. My kids see me reading my devotional, they see me reading the Bible. They see my husband and I talking about our faith very vocally and talking about God. So they pick up on those nuggets. And I see it especially with my oldest daughter. My youngest daughter, she's young, she just turned fourteen, so I don't expect her to fully get it like she will as she gets older. But my eighteen year old, I see her mimicking what I'm doing. She gets up early, she reads her devotional, she's on social.
Media, very vocal about God.
She shows her social media audience that she prays before she eats. And this is not something that I've told her, this is something that she's seen me do. So she's now mimicking because she has formed her own relationship with God. She gets up and she'll go to church on her own, not because Mom's making her do it, but because she's formed her own relationship. So that's first and foremost. It's leading by example because your kid is going to pick up the good and the bad, So you better make sure that you are focused more so on like, how do you lead a good example? Because they're going to pick up on all of that, and then you know, Melvin and I were also very open with our kids, and I check in with my kids and I ask them, like, am I being a good mom?
Is that being a good dad?
Because I want to know, like how they feel, because I know and I see this a lot of times when I do panels or when I see other people doing panels.
We always talk.
About like our childhood traumas and you know, the things that we don't want to pass down to the next generation. We talk about breaking generational curses because of what our moms did, and it's not necessarily bad thing. Yeah, you want to break generational curses, but if I can try to avoid that conversation of my kid is saying that they want to break generational curses by checking in with them now to see what we can do differently. Now, that's what I want to try to get ahead of the curve, so they're not having conversations like, well, I want to break this generational cycle because my mom didn't do this, or my mom didn't do that, Like tell me what I'm not doing now so I can try to fix it now. So just being very open and transparent with our kids and observing their needs and concerns has been very helpful for us as a family. And we also recently just announced our partnership with P and G where we launched my Old Cares, which is our nonprofit organization that champions the mental health and well being of preteens and teenagers that helps them nurture a positive and resilient mindset. And that's what I'm so passionate about with our teenagers because I know that they have so much thrown at them, so much information, and the mission is to help equip teams with access, with opportunity resources to create a future.
In which they believe in.
And so I believe in igniting like that post positive change through different programs initiatives that helps our teams thrive mentally and physically. I want to make sure that the example that I'm showing at home that other teams and pre teams also have that opportunity to champion their mindset because success is all about mindset shift, and if we can help our teenagers change their minds, we can help them change their lives. And that's how I approach dealing with kids.
Thank you so much for that. So what's next for Mayel? So you just talked about mael Cares. Are there any other things or initiatives that you're working on that you can share?
Of course, we're always working on something that is super exciting. Like always challenge my team to be better than we were last year. Of course, there are competitors in our field, but I like to be in competition with myself and be better than I was before and to really be that trendsetter, that leader, and the disruptor in my community. And that's what I really like to focus on. We're hitting our tenure anniversary and all I can tell you is just watch out, because it is going to be an amazing tenure anniversary and I'm super excited about it. And we're gonna take all of our Maivens, our Mavericks on this journey with us, the ones that's been with us from the very beginning, the ones that are new that are just coming on board. They're in store for something really spectacular for our tenure.
So we have to just stay tuned for all that excitement to unfold. So you've already mentioned how incredible and how piovotal having your mom along for this journey has been to supporting your entrepreneurial success. What other tips or suggestions would you have for other busy moms who are also entrepreneurs about how to navigate that life.
Any advice and I can give to moms that's trying to navigate life and parenting and building a career entrepreneurship, you know, so avoid feeling like overwhelmed and burnt out. Lean on your support system. Create that support system, because if you are tired, burnt out, and overwhelmed, you can't pour into anybody else. Lean on your people, have help with taking the kids places to their activities, preparing meals, whatever it.
Needs that the household needs.
Know that you can delegate those needs and responsibilities. I think that especially as black women, we tend to have the superwoman complex, like we have to do everything because that's what makes us a wife, that's what makes us a mom. But we have to get rid of that complex because that is not healthy, and it is okay to ask for help. It is okay to delegate because that is really a sign of strength, is not a sign of weakness, and that does not means that you are less of a mom, less of a wife.
You do what you need to do to get the help that you need.
So you can thrive in an environment and be the best mom, the best wife, for your husband, for your kids and friends, sister. Whatever it is your role is, you want to be the best version of that, and asking for help is the key to be in that best version. Give yourself grace when you're running a household, being a present mother, and running a business is hard. Don't be hard on yourself. Give yourself some grace and working out. Exercise is also really good for my mental health as well. It boosts your mood, it releases all of those endorphins, it provides you energy, and you also have to make sure you take time to rest. I'm actually reading a book right now by Joyce Myers, and she is specifically talking about wisdom nuggets that she would give to her younger self that she wished she would have had when she was younger, because at one point she was doing everything and was saying yes to everything, and the power of saying no is so powerful, but also the power of rest. We live in a time where people want to glorify team no sleep, but rest is extremely important for your health, for your mental well being. And Joyce talked about she likes to get seven to nine hours of sleep, and I am not too far from that. I at least get probably like eight, but if I can get nine, I'm taking my nine hours because res is very key to my mental well being.
Thank you so much for sharing those tips with us, Monique. Where can people stay in touch with you? I know you said you're not on social media very much, but if we want to stay in tuned for all the excitement that you have for your ten year anniversary, where should people be looking.
Yeah, so, I'm on my personal page like I do check in, but I'm not scrolling like how I.
Used to be.
So I have a personal social media page. I still post on there when I want to post when I feel like sharing, but it's at exquisite mode. You can follow me there, and then, of course you can follow my yel Organics at my Yel Organics, on Instagram, on TikTok, and also on Facebook and Twitter.
Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing that and for sharing some time with us today.
Absolutely no problem.
I'm so glad Monique was able to join me for this episode, so learn more about her and the work she's doing. Be sure to visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash myel don't forget to text this episode to two of your girls right now so that they can check it out. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was produced by Frieda. Lucas, Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. We'll be back with our regular episode next Wednesday, but until then, take good care.
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