What I genuinely love is that our community didn't just inspire this brand, they built it. They picked the flavors, chose the benefits, and then ended up on the can itself. There is nothing like watching someone walk into Target and see their own face on a shelf, that's what building with your community instead of for them actually looks like.

People don't realize how much of building GORGIE has happened in the DMs, in the comments, in real conversations with real people who drink our product. My focus groups looked like pulling up to events with a cooler, handing cans to anyone who walked in, and watching their face before they even knew what they were drinking. That's the work nobody sees, and it's the work that matters most.

Honestly? My kids made me a better entrepreneur. Before I had them, I was the last one in the office every night, driven, but not particularly focused. Motherhood forced me to be ruthless about my priorities, to ask myself every single day: what is actually going to move the needle today? They booked my days in the best way, morning time with them sets my intention, and being home for dinner reminds me why I'm doing all of it. Most importantly, I became a founder because of them. When I had Lydia, I remember staring at her and saying.. Wow, I can create a human,... what else can I do? She is why I became a founder.

The hardest part is the guilt that sneaks in during high-growth seasons, when the business needs everything and so do they, and you're doing your best to be fully present in both places. The most rewarding is getting to show them what it looks like to build something from nothing. My son saw me speak at an event at Harvard recently and told me he was proud of me, and honestly, that's the only metric that really matters.

I start with movement, a beach run is my version of meditation and the thing that clears my head before the noise of the day sets in. After that it's kids, a chilled GORGIE, and then I'm fully in work mode. I try to close out by dinner because family time is my reset, and then I'll often jump back on for an hour or two once everyone's settled. It's not always pretty, but it works for us.

GORGIE's retail footprint right now, full stop! We went from an idea to thousands of Target stores nationwide, Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, Sprouts, HEB, Erewhon, and Amazon. This brand went from a mood board and a cooler full of samples to one of the fastest-growing energy drinks in the country. Watching it become a national brand on shelves people actually shop every day is everything.

I have an outfit formula and I live by it: comfortable but cute basics with one or two statement pieces that do the heavy lifting. The real secret though is laying it out the night before; that five minutes of intention the evening before means I'm never frantically pulling something together in the morning.

Stop trying to balance it and start committing to your priorities every single day instead, because balance implies everything gets equal weight all the time, and that's just not real life. Some days the business needs more, some days your kids do, and the goal is to be present wherever you are rather than half-somewhere in both. And give yourself grace, you're building something remarkable on both fronts.