On this episode, Nellie is talking about How To Use Your Menstrual Cycle To Improve Your Life and Work with guest Alyx Coble-Frakes of The Agenda Period.
This episode touches on:
If you'd like to connect with Alyx:
@TheAgendaPeriod on IG
Cycle (Re) Introduction FB Group
Invest in The Agenda Period Here
Understand your entire cycle and hormonal picture, so you can feel your best!
On this episode, Nellie is talking about How To Use Your Menstrual Cycle To Improve Your Life and Work with guest Alyx Coble-Frakes of The Agenda Period.
This episode touches on:
If you'd like to connect with Alyx:
@TheAgendaPeriod on IG
Cycle (Re) Introduction FB Group
Invest in The Agenda Period Here
Understand your entire cycle and hormonal picture, so you can feel your best!
Good morning mama. It is time to wake up and be wealthy. It is time for you to become rich a week it is time for more ease, flow and fun for you. It is time to build a life and business. You are madly in love with it. It's time to unlock the wealth codes needed to build your business with your dedicated host, me, Nellie Corriveau Nellie Corriveau. I am the CEO and founder of the wealthy mama movement, and I want to officially welcome you to the wake up and be wealthy show. I am the master at sales and social media with over 17 years of experience, building brands in multiple industries, resulting in millions of dollars night as mentored countless women from starting their businesses all the way up to multi millionaires. I am here to be your go to mama to help you build an iconic brand that you are proud of to create a massive passion and impact in the world. Without further ado, let's unlock today's episode. Enjoy Welcome back to the show. I am here even with a raspy voice. But we do keep moving forward as women. And hopefully I will I won't even have to do a ton of talking today because this gas is so cool. Alyx, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you here. Thank you. I'm so pumped to be on this podcast. It's gonna be a ton of fun. It is I wish you guys could see her bright bold red. We have been in each other's worlds for a long time now. And you're a twin mama. And super, super passionate talking about periods. Yeah, and that's like the red lipstick is so intentional. Someone like you asked me one time they're like, did you do? Did you do that? I'm like, Did you think I would not like that this would be an accident. Like, of course the right lipstick. Whenever we're talking about periods. It's like the signature color. And I even have a signature place where I get it. So I don't know if I'm ready to share my secret yet. But there's like a specific shade. I'm like, damn, this is just the best red lipstick I've ever used. So pull it off, you look fabulous. So what we're chatting about today, how to use your menstrual cycle to improve your life and your work. So tell us all the things like why are you passionate about? How do we use our menstrual cycle to help us win? Oh, just tell us tell us all the dates. It was a complete accident. And if you would have told 10 year old Alex when I started my period awkwardly in fifth grade like that someday she would be so excited about period you'd make a whole company about it, I would have been even more mortified than I already was at that moment. I was like hell no, this is terrible. I hate periods. I was definitely inundated from a very early age with the almost like knowing sometimes spoken and sometimes not spoken that your periods were gross and that and like should definitely not be brought up in play company. That is definitely the feeling I grew up with. I don't know if anyone listening can relate to that. But it just like was pretty much a no go thing that you should not really pay attention to. And so I didn't I didn't know a lot about my menstrual cycle. I did not even know a lot about my period I dreaded every month, and I would just kind of try to move through it as quickly as possible, even to like the anxiety of changing a pad or tampon in public. Because of the rustling sound of the paper. I was like, oh my god, this is terrible. So it really can be a very visceral topic for many people. And so one of the things we're set out to do now is to help people reclaim their entire menstrual cycle because we spent approximately eight years of our lives menstruating. And when you think about the mind body connection, if you hate your body, when you're on your period, what does that due to how you're thinking about yourself how you're thinking about the rest of your life, if you're constantly in this cycle of recovering from hating yourself, that doesn't really allow us to do our best and boldest work in the world. And so we're here to help women administrators totally reclaim that. So that's kind of the backdrop for how we got here. But again, it was completely on accident. And it was actually when I was starting my first health coaching company in 2018. I began tracking my sales and I found in my own data that I had the highest sales during the ovulation phase of my menstrual cycle. Like I can make more money depending on when I have my sales calls. This is friggin awesome. And you know we learn in business to work smarter, not harder. So I thought like but like why am I planning my sales? Calls any other time if I'm not converting at the same rate? Yeah. So that was kind of the very first aha, that led me down this path. And then I eventually got curious like what feels easier or harder depending on when I do it in the month. Everything. So that was kind of the like the really a couple of big turning moments that eventually led to start a new agenda period. I love it. And so it's really reverse engineering your whole life and business around your period. Yes, because your menstrual cycle is happening anyway 365 days a year, except for when you are pregnant, or you know, through menopause, we are somewhere in the menstrual cycle. So there are actually four phases of the menstrual cycle, your period, then the follicular phase, then ovulation and then the luteal phase. So we're always somewhere within the cycle, but the world kind of focuses on these, like 60 taboo days a year. And I'm like, What about the other 305 days? Like, like, we're just getting no support, there's no handbook. And honestly, we've really just inherited a narrative of shame around being cyclical, right? We are called unpredictable. We know we're cyclical, because what do people say you're hormonal, you're unpredictable, you're irregular. You're crazy. They even called hysterectomies, the wording I think from Greek comes from like to remove hysteria. So they thought they were actually make women not crazy by performing a hysterectomy on them because they thought the uterus was the sea of female hysteria. That's literally in the name packed right into there. And so we can understand why it's hard to tap into this wisdom. Because we live in a society that's all about the grind, go, go go do the same thing every day, wash, rinse, repeat. And that is very much how men's bodies work. That is not how women administrators bodies work. So there's not a problem with us. There's a problem with the system. So it's time for us to reclaim our rightful cyclicality. Okay, so if someone listening is like, Okay, I'm picking up what you're putting down? What do I do next, like coach us through? Like, what are the next steps to to make this happen? Yeah, because it seemed like such a crazy concept when I first was putting the pieces together, which why it took me over a year to even launch this company, I kind of kept my head in the sand, kept working on my health coaching, and then like doing these practices for myself, but not really talking about out loud, because I was like, this sounds weird as hell. So our first product that we launched was actually a planter. So it had think about like time blocking, that's a very popular system or tool in business. And I was like, Well, what if I had time blocking for the four phases of my cycle? So we broke down the four phases, as we put tasks into each of those phases as like a bucket of things you could think about as a baseline. And we ran a beta test with 100 other women in business in early 2019. They're like, hey, yeah, I would actually put this over here or here. And they really helped us flush out that initial data set. So that's what we do we help you understand those four phases. What are the energies in physiologies that are going on? And give you things to consider? Like, what might you want to focus on when so let's go from the top, the menstrual phase, and and also pair it with a seasonality, because if you are hearing this from the first time, this can be a really easy introduction. So the menstrual phase can feel like your inner winter. So kind of consider what things do you like to do in the winter, maybe you're more internal, maybe you're more feeling like some hibernation days, maybe you want to eat warming or soothing foods, your body is going through that during menstruation. So we look at this as the planning time. So this is actually when you might want to map out kind of put the dots in place for your next phase. This is for your next cycle. This is not highly interactive. This is very much the intuitive and like internal piece of this puzzle. And a lot of people that teach a similar methodology talk about planning during the follicular phase, but we saw a lot of red flags and pitfalls when you plan in the follicular phase because you get this big burst of energy in the follicular phase. So like what happens if the version of yourself with the most energy plans the rest of your month, I should show up are so high for your future self. You're like, I feel amazing. I'm gonna feel this amazing in three weeks. And so I'm gonna just chalk my schedule full of stuff to do. And then we see women full of guilt again, when they're canceling on people during the luteal phase when they don't want to do that project when they don't want to do that sales conversation. And then instead of again, understanding they're falling into a pattern. They say I'm bad and wrong, there's something wrong with me there's something wrong with how I'm running my business or I'm how I'm doing work. Rather than understanding just take the planner away from the follicular like that to the menstrual phase version of yourself. So that's kind of how we think about this phase as like the grounding planning time of your cycle. Next, in the follicular phase, this is our internal All springtime. So this is a busy bee time, the time for doing estrogen is on the rise. Estrogen supports the serotonin receptors in the brain. So it's a great time to try something new because if it doesn't go well it will roll off your back more easily. So great time to go to a networking event for the first time or put yourself out there or even a great time for launching something because you've got a little bit of tougher skin because you're like, hey, that estrogen on my side, we're going to be good to go. So this is a great time for putting that plan into action and actually starting to get stuff moving ovulation shortest phase of the cycle, it's a very potent, it's like kind of maybe two to three days before the egg actually pops out, then the egg pops out and then about 24 hours ish after the egg has popped out. But this is a highly potent time for us. Because even if your brain does not want to your body wants to be impregnated. So we send off different hormones and chemicals. Our face may even look more symmetrical during this time. So it's a great time to ask for a raise. It is a great time to do sales conversations. It's a great time to record copy if possible. Or like record videos or do talks or workshops. I tried to pitch VC in the ovulation phase whenever possible. Hey secret weapon. But like it's just like a good time like you're you got that like those juicy like super feeling yourself days. And that's typically a rubbed ovulation for people. And I've actually as I am a coach to one of the things I did the last time I had to do a big pitch. I was not I was like deep in the luteal phase. But I did a visualization for myself. Now because I've been paying attention for so many cycles, I can really easily tap into like the energetic quality of how I feel when I'm ovulating. So I like put on my ovulation energy for the day. I like did a meditation, I did a visualization I like honed into that phase, and I just I felt like I was ovulating like the whole rest of the day. And I wasn't. But that can be like a life hack too, if you know how to do those kinds of modalities for yourself. And then the luteal phase is the last phase of the cycle. This is typically our longest phase. And it tends to be kind of broken into two almost two weeks. So this is our in our autumn time. So we've kind of got the first week of that, which tends to be an intense energy, but also I don't have time for your bullshit energy. So I call it my CEO time, like, it's a great time for tough conversations. Like the buck stops here kind of energy, definitely during that time, it can get a lot of flack for being bitchy or critical hypercritical, but we find when we really focus on analyzing and organizing that can kind of take some of the air out of like the negative aspect of that quality and really, like highlight some of the benefits of that phase. And then the last week to the last four days, we tend to have this snap in the cycle around day 24. And it's the day for me where I kind of hate everybody, like I get like almost irrationally angry, and then I check my calendar. And it's like always on day 24. But you have this huge hormonal drop, because your body recognizes that you're not pregnant. And so your levels of progesterone and estrogen decreased pretty rapidly on that day, preparing the body to show the endometrium lining when your period is going to start about four to five days later. And so people can be really, really irritable and then comes like this one was more sensitive part the last few days before your period starts. So we really just focus on the benefits perspective with the agendas like how can we uplift the gifts of every single phase of our cycle so that we're always focusing on how we can just really feel our best and support ourselves. I love that and I loved when you connected it to working smarter, not harder. And this is such a unique, abstract way to think about working smarter, not harder that I don't I mean, I know you're in this world way more, but like do you feel like I don't feel like anyone's talking about this, like, at least not know, like, I feel like we barely honestly barely scratched the surface. And like we have so much more to do to get the word out. Which is because people intuitively understand that they make even saw some like little light bulbs cross your own face. I don't know what what they were like what it was bringing up for you about your own work or whatever. But like people like I've recognized things feel different as I moved through it, but we don't have a language for it. We're not taught about this. And so it can feel really daunting for someone to even get plugged in because we have got like two kinds of gut reactions like women say like, Oh, you want me to do more work? Like no babes. Like you're already doing too much. We want you to do less work more efficiently, you know, with your hormonal fluctuations. And then there the other thing is like, well, like how can I even do this? Because like the entire, like, well how the entire world is oriented around men right now we figured out how to do that even though it only works For half of the population, if we all collectively came together, we could create a different system. And this is not blaming the individual at all. This is just understanding like, we're up against kind of a battle in here, even when it makes sense, it can be challenging for people. So no, I feel like I'm like almost four years and and we still barely scratched the surface on what needs to happen. That's also really exciting, though. Because I'm seeing like, we've been as women, we've been operating in a very much masculine energy. And at least in my circles, I'm seeing women say like, this is not working for me anymore. Like, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't work with my life. And so I really am seeing this immersion of women, that they may not know the solutions, but they're ready for them. Like, it's just not working for them anymore to operate in masculine energy 24/7, myself included. Simply reading? Yeah, it is it's it's so depleting because our body just like it's against our physiology, it's against the and fraidy in rhythm. Like, we all have the circadian rhythm if we were just like, I'm just going to decide I'm not going to sleep anymore. You would, you can't ignore that rhythm we like that's just part of your biology. We couldn't just decide, well, I've been a muscle my way through this. But that's what we have been doing with the ignoring the of the infrared and rhythm and we see this in stress related disorders, anxiety disorders, adrenal fatigue, the rate of women and men Streeters who have just like so many of these, like mind body connection conditions, we see them in so much higher rates. And that's because we're really cutting ourselves off from our entire experience. And we're not being embodied right now. We're living from our neck up. And that is really a huge disservice to us. Well, in to your point about the shame, I think when you have a great week, and it was accidentally, like aligned to like you had some great sales, but then you keep expecting that right, like, and then we go into a shame cycle of like, I crushed it last week, I had so much high energy, what's wrong with me? And then that's when it starts to spiral out. And we like just beat ourselves up like this is actually exciting that there's like, there's a reason why like, it's Yeah, exciting. I laugh because I found myself in that pattern before I knew it was a pattern like I was having this great sales and I wasn't tracking it on a spreadsheet yet. Like I was tracking like, but I wasn't like highlighting my conversions around ovulation. But I was like having a bunch of sales. And then like a week later, I was literally on the ground crying like month after month, like searching job boards, like should I work go back to corporate America and no one's ever gonna hire me again. My company sucks. I suck. I'm like every woman in business needs to know this like yesterday. Like, there was nothing wrong. And then like a few days later, I told my husband like I love my company. Like this is so cute. And he was just like, I love that for you. What's happening is like whiplash that we're on, like what is going on? Because I wasn't I didn't know how to keep track. Like it didn't feel like a pattern. It just felt like I was dysfunctional. I hope every woman listening is like, honestly crying right now in the best way possible. Like, nothing's wrong with me. Like, you're not crazy. You're cyclical. That's it. Yes. And like what was it for you to have that light bulb moment of like, I'm going to actually track this in alignment with my menstrual cycle like was there a light bulb moment for you? So and I just like a mental recommend because I was telling them about this pattern like I feel like great and then I feel like shit and she's just like okay to support your critter brain. Why don't you just track it and then you'll see in black and white that you are having people pay you money it was my business coach at the time. So this is not our intention at all to connect any of the dots to anything else you just like lady just like one of the give me a raise like it's your it's fine. Like people are hiring you to like coach them. It's like chill dude. And so I started tracking it. And then I because I am a very visual person I started highlighting all my conversions in green green for money green for go right. And then I just saw I just started seeing these clumps of like together like a bunch of green together and then a bunch of white and then like bunch of green and I was like this weird What funny, because I was trying I was like, gotta be in sales mode all the time got to do. Anytime someone says this. I'm signing them up for a call. I'm signing them up. We got to do it. I got to push push, push, push, push. And when I finally started to see this, I was like, Excuse me What is happening? What's going on? Like, oh shit, I started like because all the dates were close together that were the ones in green. I was like, That's right around my ovulation time because a few weeks later, I get my period and then like I didn't really know a lot about cycles thinking at the time, but I was like, There's got to be something else. This and I had read about I had read Elisa Biddy and Christian Northup in college, they talk about eating for the cycle and exercising for the cycle. So when I started to see these pieces, I was like, What about working for my cycle? Why aren't we talking about this? And so that was kind of the thing, like all the breadcrumbs finally started to come together and lead, you know, to this creation, but it was kind of like, like, slowly and then all at once, just this, like, smacked me over the head. It's like, man, we need to be planning with our cycle. And people still think it's a little bit crazy. But the folks who get into using it consistently, should get easier. And I talk about it being easier in my business, with my clients. And there's a really, there's so much guilt around that, of allowing it to be easy. Yes. And like, so there's a lot of money blocks around like, No, I must work really, really hard to earn my money and to show people that, you know, I made it and it's like, but if there's two paths, and you get to the same result, there's one that's really, really hard and exhausting, and you burn out, but you get there versus like, easy flow fun, you're doing less, and we get to the same result. Which one are you gonna pick? And they're like, Well, I'm gonna pick the easy one. And it's like, okay, let's work on this. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because like, that's like the patriarchy is like, there's so much barrier to actually allowing it to be easy, because we've never, or even allowing yourself to say, No, I'm not going to do that right now. Because I'm on my period. Even if you don't say that out loud. Even if you say that to yourself, people feel so guilty about that. I'm just like, relationships aren't as easy for me though. I'm a highly intuitive, highly sensitive person, I take things more personally, why would I not want to know that about myself? So I'm not offending everyone else. I'm not taking everything personally, I take things seriously, but not personally, right? So it's not like I'm letting people walk all over my boundaries. But my husband, I tend to get in more fights in that phase as part of my cycle. Okay, so I put out more verbal reminders, yo, remember, I'm in this part of my cycle. Let's just like work about that together, okay? That's like be like cognizant of that. I find parenting much more triggering during that time with my cycle. So I invest in moreso. Myself, that's fine. I let other people help me versus other times, I'm like in it. And we're like building with blocks. And I'm in the like, it's okay, that we don't feel the same every day. But we're used to this model of consistency, meaning I have to be exactly the same. And that's just not true. So that like unlearning, that has been so freeing. I love that you brought up the word consistency, because I think that's the bar is set of like, you must like, do this many videos per month, you must do this many sales calls per month. And it's like we can be consistent in the month. But that doesn't mean we have to do all these activities every single day, if it's not aligning with our energy. Yeah. And just like some stats for people who are still on the fence about whether or not this is valid, because I, you know, definitely ran into my fair share of skeptics. But on the low end, lack of menstrual cycle awareness and support is a $12 billion drain on the US economy every single year from mismanaged cycles, right? For a lack of support around the cycle, women on average, lose nine days per year. And so we have we took that number based on the median income of hourly wage workers. So it's probably in reality, much higher than $12 billion a year. So even if you were just a good, like, you're like, I love money, this will make you more money. Even if you're like not sold on, like all the field like the fluffy stuff yet, this is actually something that makes a lot of dollars and cents to work in this way. And women make up 47% of the workforce. And yet, we're still completely ignored about our physiology. So yeah, times I come in for a big shift. And I'm excited to be here chatting about it. I know I love it, too. So you guys have a lot going on in your company. Tell us tell us more? Yes, so we are in the final couple of days of our period power campaign. So check it out and check out the brands we've been talking about. Because it's not just about the agenda period app and helping you to plan with your cycle. We want people to feel awesome every single day of the year. So we're working really hard to have partnerships and collaborations with the other amazing period printers, which is what I like to call us. So other you know, predominantly women administrators making great products that actually solve our problems. So you can go if you scroll on our Instagram, you'll see tons of that. And the superduper exciting news is we like I think I mentioned we've done a couple of crowdfunding campaigns that helped us get started to help us get to this place. We've got this great community. And so now we're actually launching our next round of financing on we funder so we're doing an equity crowdfunding campaign so people will actually get to invest for a minimum of $100 and become you know, owners of the agenda period because we want Folks who experienced this problem to be at the table, helping us make decisions and driving the growth of this company so that we can actually create something that solves all of our problems, rather than continuing to have solutions made by folks who don't have periods? Because that's kind of annoying. And how can they get more involved in the company that you mentioned an app and a planner? Tell us more? Yeah, so those would be we've got a Facebook group called the cycle reintroduction, we post content in there, we have guests come on, sometimes we've done I've done a ton of video classes in there. So that is a great place, you can follow us on Instagram, shoot over any questions, and we are always happy to chat periods. But everywhere you look for us to just the agenda period. So we're pretty easy to find on the internet. I love it so much. And do you guys still have the planner available for purchase. So we no longer doing the physical planner, those things are heavy, and production of them is a pain in the ass. But we've got a period Planning Guide, which is all of the content, because that's the other thing is people are like, I just have my own planner that I really, really love. And so the thing that folks we're getting the most value from is actually the framework and the content. And so we've got a period planning guide, we have it in English and in Spanish. And you can use whatever planner feels good. And you can pair it with the amazing content and then get over to the app, which is super exciting. We actually connect your menstrual cycle to your Google Calendar. And so you don't even have to be in the app all the time, you can actually just pull up your Google calendar because if you're anything like me, you're checking that thing 1000 times a day. And it just shows you right at the top, what phase you're in and an unfriendly loving little tip of what may feel easier that day. So we want to make it really easy to not feel again, like it's this separate hidden away thing, but it's really the integrated part of your entire life. I love this. And it's a great way to plan your launches, your sales calls your time off, like really reverse engineering it and just as such a different, unique, powerful way, which I love. It's huge. You're the coolest person ever. Be on every podcast, every news channel, like you get LP is everywhere. Like I appreciate women like you trailblazing the way shattering the glass ceiling, like really challenging the norms of the world, because that's how we're going to create change. And it's hardest in the beginning. But like the more we joined together and and share these conversations and like what it can do for women, is when women are like, Oh, this actually does work. And this feels so good. Like, and I don't want this to stop. Like, I just got to the point in my life in business where I operated with such masculine energy that I was like, I just want to try the other way. Like, I just want to try. And so I hope everyone listening really checks out Alex and what you have going on and get get involved, sync your calendars, sync it with your menstrual cycle, and just try like what's the worst that could happen? Right? So I love this. So alright, my question to ask our guests before we end is what does it mean to you to be wealthy to me to be wealthy means the wealth of freedom and education knowing yourself knowing your body and making really intentional choices with your time and where you're going to put your energy like having the freedom of intentionality to do that creates a really wealthy life. And so that's what I want for every woman administrator on the planet is to be able to fully live into their power because they're living in bodied with the knowledge of how to own this container. This meat suits that we all live in like really being able to like deeply live into it. I just I know that would shift the entire direction and course of our history on this planet. Super excited. No big deal right like no pressure, Alex. I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and educated for having me so much. Take everything that you learned today. Run with it and make sure you're following everything that Alex is doing on Instagram and Facebook and I can't wait to hear all about the equity crowdfunding it's gonna be exciting. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me on today. Absolutely. Is your head spinning? I hope you took so many notes and you feel so inspired time truly flies when you're learning about becoming wealthy a ask. I hope you loved today's episode. That does it for us on the show. Don't forget every weekday we unlock a another juicy money making An episode, so be sure to subscribe or follow where you're listening to this. And also, don't forget if you haven't already to leave us a five star review on your podcast platform so we can take over the world together and share a takeaway on social media and tag me at the wealthy mama. We love doing spontaneous prize prize giveaways. So don't forget to tag us with a takeaway, so we can reward you as being one of our biggest fans and listeners. Until next time, don't forget you are worthy of being wealthy and from everyone at the wealthy mama movement. We love you make it a great day.