Health and Wellness

How an innovative tampon brand leveraged TikTok

Nadia Ladak (she/her) is passionate about the startup ecosystem and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders. She is the founder of Marlow, a menstrual health brand that has created the first-ever lubricated tampon for smoother and more comfortable insertion. Based in Toronto, she is also the Ontario representative on the Startup Canada Women Advocacy Network where she participates in government roundtables to advocate for female founders. Nadia is committed to giving back to her community through her role as a catalyst board member at Holland Bloorview Children’s Hospital and as a mentor for the Junior Achievement Company Program where she provides weekly coaching to high school students as they operate their own small businesses. In her free time, you can find her reading, playing her guitar, or spending time outside biking & camping.


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It’s Happy Mamas and Babies Guaranteed

Leanne Rzepa, owner and founder of Nourish Lactation Consulting, became a Registered Nurse in 2000 after graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from the University of Calgary. Rzepa quickly developed a passion for breastfeeding support when she began her career as a postpartum nurse at the Rockyview General Hospital.

In 2006 Rzepa began to focus her nursing practice on breastfeeding support and started studying to become a certified lactation consultant. Rzepa successfully passed her exam in 2007 and became an IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant).

In 2008 Nourish Lactation Consulting opened for business to provide in-home breastfeeding support and education to families in Calgary and surrounding communities. Rzepa, always an entrepreneur at heart, saw a need for in-home support after years of working in the hospital setting. “Women spend such a short time in the hospital after giving birth. Most new mothers are exhausted and aren’t able to retain the information shared by hospital staff. Breastfeeding is a learned art. It often takes days or even weeks for a new mother to feel confident feeding her baby. Nourish provides support in the home setting which is more conducive for learning and confidence building.”

Nourish has helped countless mothers meet their breastfeeding goals by providing quality, caring, evidence-based support. Most women Rzepa supports struggle with latch, pain, tongue tie, milk supply issues, poor weight gain, or feeding multiples. In addition to providing in-home support, Rzepa has an online store that sells a variety of breastfeeding related products, apparel, and supplements. Nourish also offers a breast pump rental service, monthly workshops, virtual consults, a drop-in clinic and a multitude of services provided by other healthcare professionals such as a sleep consultant, registered dietitian, pelvic floor physio, and postpartum support provided by a Doula.

Rzepa is passionate about her job and receives much joy from supporting mothers to achieve their breastfeeding goals.


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We had no idea eating salad could be so dangerous

In October 2018, their two-year-old son was infected with E. coli during the romaine lettuce outbreak. It was one week from the first sign that something was wrong until the day he died.

Brad and Kristin Bell had no idea that eating a salad could be so dangerous. And they were shocked to find out how widespread this problem is. Leafy green vegetables now cause more E. coli outbreaks than any other food, including beef.

With the spirit of Cooper in their hearts, they put everything they had into a new solution – they partnered with Freight Farms to create 4 Acres Hydroponics – their startup that creates a carefully controlled indoor environment to grow greens year-round with no pesticides or herbicides – for their family, community, and as advocates for food systems reinvention.

In this podcast, they touch on three key ideas:

  1. Is mass-produced food killing us?
  2. Three things you can do today to get access to safe, healthy food.
  3. Basic information for starting your own micro-impact hydroponic foods innovation project.

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Olympic bobsledder on a Wild Tea Kombucha ride

Emily Baadsvik is a Maritimer who now calls Calgary home. Over the course of the last seven years, she has taken her background competing at an elite sport level, and transposed it into the work ethic of running Wild Tea Kombucha. Along with her business partner Brigette Freel, the two are constantly pushing themselves, as well as the boundaries of Kombucha. With Emily successfully represented Canada in Women’s Bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and Brigette’s adventurous motorcycle & sailor lifestyle, the two are passionate about health and wellness. Brigette has her Masters in Environmental Science, while Emily just completed her Executive MBA this past May. From being part of District Ventures, the TAP program, as well as the abundance of mentors, they’ve become friends with, they are proud of the journey of Wild Tea Kombucha, and look forward to its future and showing people how they can Stay Wild!


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Cannabis 101 With Industry Expert, David Marcus

David Marcus is an industry expert in all things cannabis, with over 25 years of experience and successfully lobbying the Federal Government to include hemp-based CBD in their cannabis regulations. David Marcus is the founder and president of two Canadian cannabis companies: Natural Emphasis and ABIDE. Natural Emphasis was founded in 1995 with a focus on the newly re-emerging hemp industry. ABIDE was incorporated in 2013 to take advantage of Canada’s new cannabis laws. ABIDE is a Health Canada licensed cannabis cultivator and processor focused on outdoor, sun-grown cannabis in Ontario. WholeHemp, a family of hand-crafted, locally-grown and produced full-spectrum CBD products was launched by ABIDE to licensed Ontario Cannabis Retailers through the Ontario Cannabis Store in the spring of 2021.


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Finding the Balance in Partnership with Health Coaches Marjie Richardson and Kelan Smith

Nutrition Coaches, Marjie Richardson and Kelan Smith are co-founders of High Peak Nutrition. High Peak Nutrition is a Canadian nutrition coaching company rooted in food psychology. Empowering people with a customized one-on-one approach to supporting responsible weight management, High Peak Nutrition’s programs are built to reduce inflammation and create hormonal balance to promote long-term wellness.


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Taking risks and starting from scratch with Vincent Cheng

Vincent Cheng was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and presently resides nearby Ajax, Ontario.

Although Vincent calls Canada his home, he has explored 32 countries across the globe. This exploration has anchored his connection to diverse cultures formulating a deep understanding of humanity at large. Since 2013 Vincent has traveled to Japan annually and lived with a Zen Buddhist monk in a 600-year old temple until COVID-19 prohibited travel in 2020.

Vincent’s accomplishments are just as diverse as his travels. He began his career as an electrical engineer in 2004, and a year later, alongside this, Vincent began his quest of conducting orchestras, choirs, and operas. He coached and conducted hundreds of amateurs and professionals across Canada, the USA, Europe, and the Middle East in voice and musicianship. Feeling a deeper calling, Vincent retired from engineering to fully devote his pursuit to the music profession. In 2012 he sold all his possessions and booked a one-way ticket to Berlin, Germany; from there he conducted operas across Europe and won 3rd prize in the 2013 International Conducting Competition in Budapest, Hungary. In 2014 he returned to Canada and began his studies in psychotherapy, meanwhile continuing his conducting career as an ongoing passion.

These diverse worlds of work and life experiences have built upon one another and connect as a whole. They are what led him to develop ‘Heal The Source’, a method that helps people fast-track their own healing based on their need for change and development. It is through this one-of-a-kind approach that Vincent’s intuitive leadership and integrity shine through. His visionary way of thinking and his intriguing ability to motivate and inspire is what guides him in serving others through Heal The Source to heal the world!

When he is not traveling, you can find Vincent passionately enjoying culinary arts, creating cuisines of all types. He also revels in hiking, reading, meditating, piano and organ playing, and of course singing.


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Generate multiple streams of income

Krysta Francoeur has worked as a designer and brand-builder for 14 years. In 2014 she moved to Malaysia to work for the famous transformational education company Mindvalley, and has since supported some of the biggest names in personal development such as T. Harv Eker, Deepak Chopra, The Shift Network, the authors of Stealing Fire, and more – all well building her own health food company, Wild Remedies.

Known for her ability to create beauty in everything she sees, the founder of Wild Remedies, Krysta Francoeur, is a Modern Magick Maven who has used the physical and emotional she has experienced, to facilitate healing, awareness, and balance with herbs and nutraceuticals to the marketplace in a unique way.

Seeing an opportunity in the market for better-for-you functional beverages, Krysta was inspired to use her years of creative expertise to create a product line that uses the medicine of botanicals (natural healing), the beauty of art and design (packaging), and the creativity of cooking (flavour), to create a product line that’s forging a new path in the wellness space by merging supplement with beverage.

By utilizing therapeutic-grade botanicals, super-shrooms, and nutraceuticals, as well as planting a tree for every product purchased, Krysta hopes to encourage everyone to consider the use of healing plants to correct imbalances, reconnect with nature, reignite the beauty within themselves, and help to heal our home on planet earth.


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Sex & Success in Business

Nakula Das’ semen retention lifestyle made international news during his run for office in the 2021 Canadian Federal Election. For most North Americans, this ancient practice was unheard of and elicited a wide range of reactions. While there was no correlation between his political campaign and his semen retention practice, it brought international awareness to the population’s lack of sexual knowledge and current battle with porn addiction.

Nakula has declared #WarOnPorn and is making sex education and semen retention mainstream.

With the rise of internet pornography and the over sexualization of modern culture, Nakula is challenging the mainstream narrative and culture on its views and understanding of sex and sexuality.

He is the creator of the ‘Semen Retention Army’, a full training and accountability program dedicated to helping men quit porn, regulate their ejaculations, become better lovers for their partners and become more focused and disciplined. His program teaches men how to use breath-work, muscle control and meditation to develop a new relationship with their sexual energy and redirect those urges into healthy pursuits.


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How to start a business with almost NOTHING

If you had told Mellisa Mills a decade ago she’d be at the helm of a growing plant-based cheese empire, she’d have laughed in your face. After all, she’d been fired from just about every job she ever held for insubordination. But it turns out, she just needed to do things her own way.

She started cooking for herself at a young age. Later, in between the many jobs that never seemed to stick, her DIY spirit and curiosity about nutrition and plant medicine combined with her love of quality ingredients to create Spread’Em Kitchen.

Mellisa turned a blender, a bicycle, and $500 into a thriving farmers market stand in Vancouver. A few years later, Spread’Em Kitchen moved into its own industrial facility, where it gradually grew into a celebrated manufacturer of plant-based dips, spreads and cheeses.

Mellisa makes sure all ingredients are ethically sourced and background checked. Her employees earn a living wage. Spread’Em is striving to become a zero-waste facility. The company also donates to several children’s programs, including breakfast clubs at local schools.

The business has since exploded across Canada, growing from $500 in sales to almost $4 million. Mellisa remains on a mission to disrupt the packaged food space. She believes that food should be nourishing, that it should be made with integrity, that it should make you feel good, and that it should be shared.


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