Luna Aziz & Legendairy Milk – Normalising Breastfeeding to Transform Motherhood

23:14Jeannette:And so they come in with so much vitriol, so many hate comments. Sometimes it's thousands of comments that our customer service team and social media team are trying to manage of just outright disgust by breastfeeding. And it's just so disheartening to see, especially because we have such a supportive community of moms. I love how they come out to bat immediately, just start swinging at these comments, you know, try and provide education. We do too, but sometimes it can be very disheartening to see that. But it just means that we have a lot more work to do, unfortunately, to get to a place. And that's why I hope the younger generation seeing this will understand just how much impact you can make on a mom just by being supportive to

23:56Luna Aziz:her in a very intense season of her life yeah it's it's really fascinating it's a generational shift right that's what we're talking about isn't it and more to be done clearly um and when it comes to um the platforms and visual visual representation have you had any challenges around that and I'm not suggesting that you're you've got lots and lots of images of women you know with their breasts out but nonetheless you know that is breastfeeding you have to you can't do it through a top um yeah so have you had anything around sort of images and and controversy around content apart from just sort of verbal um trolling and some some sort of quite nasty feedback from certain people anything on the visual side that's been a challenge for you

24:44Jeannette:Early days, for sure, there were the terms of service for Facebook and Instagram. They had rules around what they considered deemed nudity. And unfortunately, breastfeeding was one of them. So we would get into Facebook jail a couple of times, just get dinged for what they consider nudity. They changed their rules over the last few years where if a baby was actively breastfeeding, then you could show the breast. So that has helped quite a bit because unfortunately, a lot of moms who come to us, they never really saw anyone in their life breastfeed before. They didn't see their mother, their sister, their cousins.

25:16Jeannette:They're coming at it completely with a fresh slate. They just don't know what they don't know. And so they can't emulate what family members did because they never had that. And those people also may not be super supportive in their life about what their plan is to breastfeed. So they're coming to us to see those videos because I think a lot of times we are visual learners. It's helpful to see a mom and baby, especially who are struggling, to say like, oh, the light bulb comes on. You're like, wow, that's what I'm going through. I find a lot of moms sometimes don't even realize that there's an issue until they see one of our videos or we talk about a certain topic and they're like, that really resonated with me.

25:51Jeannette:That's everything, that running checklist of everything that I'm going through. Now how do I get help? I think we've been coached to suffer in silence in many ways. And because breastfeeding just has a long way to go in terms of the support that we get for it, I think a lot of times moms just think.

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26:45Jeannette:I'm just going to normalize what is not necessarily normal because I don't know where else to turn and I'm not sure where to get that education and advice. So I would say if you look on our account, a lot of what we receive is UGC. So we're asking our community to send in videos because I want to see women in all walks of life, all nationalities, all backgrounds. I want mom to feel like she can see this video and say that looks like my baby or that looks like me I didn't want to Center it towards myself because I don't think I'm important in this narrative I truly think it should be about mom and her being able to see herself in that narrative So I have not really you know you talked about being part of the brand I have not really been vocal in the last 10 years I say just like in this year.

27:28Jeannette:I've really started put my face out there because I wanted it to be about the moms. I think it's more important that they feel like they have a voice than for me too.

27:37Luna Aziz:Yeah, it's a balance, isn't it? Because I think as a business founder and owner, if you have got a personal backstory, often that just makes it even more real and compelling. And at the end of the day, from a business point of view, or any relationship really, we do business with people that we know, like, and trust. And when we can show a little bit of our authentic selves and show our vulnerability i think it hugely helps actually you know in terms of the dna and the values of the business because they come from a very a very um strong positive place in yourself and your husband um so it's interesting that you're now 10 years in you're sort of starting

28:15Jeannette:i'm finally doing that yes i mean i think i'm very much an introvert so everyone has tried to convince me for quite a few years i think this is finally when i i had enough bravery to do it but it's scary to put yourself out there and and you know public speaking is terrifying in some ways so I'm I'm a work in progress I'm getting there well you're doing very well Luna so and

28:39Luna Aziz:you know honestly you're very articulate but I get it because not everyone is is an extrovert if you're more of a naturally reserved kind of quieter personality it can be it can be daunting to do this but I always think that you know you're there to help you're there to serve so actually it would be you know you'd be doing an injustice to other people to not tell your story

29:02Jeannette:thank you very kind thank you i appreciate that so so it's great keep going with all of that really

29:07Luna Aziz:it is really really inspiring so from a business point of view then luna you know you never particularly set out to be an entrepreneur or or a business owner at all and on the business side of things what's been the what's been the the most difficult side of that because the business isn't small now this business is it has got a decent scale to it and you're global you know you've got a strong brand you've had to build all of this organically what have you learned from um from a business point of view and and also what's been the most difficult for you great you've got your husband and he seems to be on the numbers however you know there's still there's still some gaps there for you i would expect because business is complicated and um especially if you don't have a a business degree or you didn't start out with that entrepreneurial kind of goal so yeah where have you managed with the business side of things as well as the purpose and the product what you

29:59Jeannette:offer i think to your point scaling especially because we're omni-channel we're not just ddc we're not just amazon we're not just retail we're all three and um there are certain requirements for each of those um their their own animal if you will and we still fulfill everything in our within our own warehouse. And so having to meet the demands of what Walmart wants versus Amazon and the storage capacity required and the labeling required and the packaging required for all of those, it is a nightmare. I give so much credit to our warehouse team for being able to manage all of that because it just, it's very stressful to think about.

30:35Jeannette:So just scaling, I think we did it in a manageable way because, you know, first we got into Target, then it was Walmart, then some of these grocers and throughout that working with the smaller shops as well. So it was very much feasible, but I think at this point, when I think about what that team does, it's pretty amazing. The other thing I'd say that's been a challenge is just expanding our product line. So we have been very much known for postpartum and lactation for a really long time, but I felt like there was still a gap in the market that we could fill because we are you know very much third part we're third party tested because we know that we're working with such a vulnerable population of moms who are always concerned about what they're ingesting and how it's going to possibly transfer into their breast milk so heavily certified kosher halal certified organic I mean we go through an abundance of testing and documentation to make sure that what we say and this product is actually in it.

31:33Jeannette:And I just felt like there was still a gap in the market when it came to feeling like you were using products that actually were highly vetted and had science behind them. So just in the last year, we've expanded to women's health products as well. So we have something for postpartum hair loss, let's see, focus and attention, something to help with stress and a calming support, something for sleep. We have something for hormonal imbalance. Personally, I use it because I have PCOS. So I always think about the, I think it was the hair club for men. The founder would always say, I'm not just a spokesperson.

32:08Jeannette:I'm also a client. I would not, I mean, I'm using quite a few of these products, but also I wouldn't develop anything that I didn't feel 100 % confident giving to all of my friends and family. Our product development team also consists of only women, which I think has been great because we are meeting the needs of what we are going through. So we have a lot of roundtable discussions about very open forum discussions about very taboo things, I think, where we're talking about UTIs and ovarian cysts and PMS and PMDD and what we would want in a product to help support all of those things. So it takes us about a year and a half to develop and launch these products, which I think is very much unheard of because a lot of brands are just popping these products out left and right.

32:52Jeannette:but we wanted to be very concerted in what we developed making sure the ingredients work synergistically together and also had clinical studies behind them so I think it's just changing the narrative a little bit where we're still there for all of the postpartum lactation support but we really want to meet mom in every chapter or every meet my I should say meet women in every chapter of their life beyond just postpartum yeah I was going to ask you about extending the product

33:19Luna Aziz:range and you've obviously you know that's that's clearly where you've been focusing as well but without losing the heart of who your target customer is yeah it's quite because you could stretch it and you could stretch it too far couldn't you and then you lose sight of the core the core customer that you're really trying to help and have an affinity with so yeah it's a tricky balance I think isn't it but sounds like you've done it exceptionally well so you know obviously what you're you're doing is you're solving a problem you're very purpose-led it It comes from a very personal place and you've scaled up and you're helping hundreds, thousands, millions of women all over the world.

33:54Luna Aziz:Amazing. And you're changing perception through this as well, the dialogue. I hope that. Yeah, well, it sounds like you are. So let's fast forward. Let's fast forward and, you know, you're towards the end of your life, Luna, whenever that may be. We're all going to go one day, aren't we? But if you're fast forward and you're projecting yourself forward, what's the legacy? You know, what do you want to be known for in this world? You know, what's the big kind of hairy vision, if you like, for what you're doing?

34:30Jeannette:I think just providing unbiased, nonjudgmental support for wherever you are in your life. I think there's just so much stigma around, honestly, not just about breastfeeding, every women's health issue, it's kind of mind boggling to think that we can't discuss these things publicly because, ew, it's gross. Ew, no one wants to hear about that. I think about menopause, for one, the lack of research around it. I mean, the fact that you can be in perimenopause for a decade before you're in full-blown menopause and, you know, that you have to be your own personal advocate for so much of this because I remember with PCOS, I wasn't diagnosed for 10 years because I kept going to doctors who would just say, oh, you have ovarian cysts?

35:11Jeannette:let's just put you on birth control so we can turn off your hormones so I hope that they know that we were here just to provide I call like the big sister ear you know big sister support that you hopefully you felt like you learned something in a very safe environment where you weren't judged by it and that you could discuss these very stigmatized topics um without feeling

35:32Luna Aziz:a certain type of way about it yeah I think that I think you're you are changing the norms and you're helping women in the process and yeah I think three two three generations down the line it will look very differently but you're clearly making an impact here and now as well which is important so yeah congratulations it really is wonderful and what have you learned about yourself through this process Luna you know whether it's business personal professional what have you what's what's been revealed to you through through all of this journey that you've been on the last 10

36:01Jeannette:years I think that I'm someone who and I think a lot of people can test this I'm a people pleaser I do not like confrontation. I think most people do not like confrontation. I think after having children, I just stopped giving a damn and I had to prioritize my children myself. And I finally understood how to set boundaries and say no. I remember kind of going back to when I had my five-year-old, that kind of period, that postpartum recovery period that I just honestly, I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck and I was bedridden. I remember someone requested a meeting with me just a virtual meeting was asking something of me and um I decided to go ahead and book the meeting anyway even though I felt terrible I remember the night before I hadn't slept because baby wanted to feed kind of non-stop the whole night and I get on this virtual meeting and they said um I didn't have my camera on because I was like literally laying in bed convalescing trying to recover and um the person who would request the meeting said hey can you turn on your camera I'd like to see you and I said oh I joked around oh you don't want to see me right now I literally like look like death warmed over um didn't sleep you know I'm still recovering from from having the baby and they were very adamant that I turn on my camera and it was very uncomfortable like I kept saying no they kept pushing on it I'm like hey you asked me for this meeting you're asking something of me and um I ended up I wish I hadn't and I turned on my camera and I now I think back and you know it's such a small thing but um I think you know five years from now thinking about that now, I think I would have very much changed the narrative around that conversation and put my foot down and said, Hey, you requested something of me.

37:40Jeannette:I don't, you know, this is a boundary for me that I don't feel comfortable turning my camera on. And if we can't continue because I'm not going to turn on, that's completely fine. Um, but it's taken me a while to get there. And I think there's probably a lot of women who can resonate with that where it feels very uncomfortable to be put in a position like that. And I think I finally have just realized that I need to, um, to be vocal about these things because I can be my I have to be my own personal advocate there's no

38:03Luna Aziz:one else to do the job yeah no it's right what are the boundaries what are your personal values when that gets overstep and also it's having the power to say no isn't it in an elegant way you know hey listen it doesn't work for you right now I'm not feeling great I don't want to do this we can always reschedule for another time you know or whatever it might be but yeah and it's that confidence isn't it as a woman to be able to do that um and do it in a way that you don't end up

38:27Jeannette:feeling rubbish about yourself well it's I mean we've all been I think we've been trained to be too nice right be very nice very be very accommodating if you're not you have that very fine line where you turn into the b-word right and I think that we've all just had that ingrained in us and I just truly don't care anymore because my family my health will come first so um you know that was a hard lesson to learn but I feel like I finally learned it well great inspiration for

38:53Luna Aziz:any women out there listening that are struggling with these kind of situations that come up and And they can come out of the blue as well. And I think, you know, that's the problem. It can catch you unawares. Whereas actually, how do you get ready for that, even though you can't predict when it might happen, but having that inner strength to be able to say, no, thank you very much. But that's crossing the line.

39:16Jeannette:Oh, my gosh. That happens to me all the time where in the moment you can't think what to say. And then you think about all the things you wish you had said. You know, it's just like ruminating in your head. I thought about that all the time with breastfeeding. like what would I say if someone said something to me in public I wanted to have all these zingers ready to go because it's such an it is true you're kind of on the spot it's so uncomfortable and you know you just feel like you're being attacked and you kind of close in on yourself you know and and it's only until later you're like oh man that would have been good to say

39:44Luna Aziz:yeah too late yeah god damn it why did I think of that at the time exactly but there's a big piece here about not beating yourself up isn't there and actually you know just kind of going hey you know i'm human i don't get it right all the time i'll learn from it i won't do that i don't want to do that again you know i'll do it i'll deal with it differently next time so i think that takes um courage and and a period of self-reflection as well but to not not beat yourself up as well as a woman or as a man because i think men do it too right you know for sure yeah definitely definitely so luna if you can think of all the amazing advice and maybe some bad advice that you might have had actually over the years any standout advice that has worked

40:26Jeannette:really well for you yeah um so good and bad let's think okay so you know previously um before legendary milk i started with a tech sales company who i worked on um just on the sales floor it was a male-dominated field i was actually the first woman to get pregnant on the floor and they kind of just didn't know what to do with me it was very much a dog-eat-dog environment i'd say pretty toxic. I didn't feel like I had a lot of autonomy in the role and they very much kind of just looked at the women as like pieces of meat. And so I remember they pulled me into, my manager pulled me into an office when I was like maybe six months postpartum, or I'm sorry, six months pregnant and said, hey, we're noticing that you're going to your prenatal appointments every week during work hours.

41:13Jeannette:Can you start going outside of work hours? And I thought, well, the doctor's office is only the open during work hours. So I'm not sure how that would work out. And I, uh, I remember saying, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm happy to get a note from the doctor to present to HR if that needs, you know, if we need to address it. And of course they completely buttoned up after that and never talked about it again. Um, but I think what I learned from that was that I ever wanted to feel like I was in a very competitive dog eat dog environment where I didn't have a voice that, um, I couldn't feel like I could share my true feelings and that it wasn't a safe place.

41:47Jeannette:and so I think that's what we really have built with Legendary Milk it's like I said very much an open forum every person's opinion is valued I really treasure authenticity over competition I think we're all super passionate about what we do too going back to we're not selling a bag of chips there's very much an emotional connection to what we're doing with these women and how we are able to transform lives and I think we're all so purpose driven behind that that I think that's helped us We all are very unique personalities, but we work really well together because of that. Good advice that I've received, I think, is to sleep on it.

42:23Jeannette:I think early on, especially because I was so sleep-deprived and I was just doing so many things, I was tackling so many different things that I probably should have taken a breath and just ruminated on a little bit before I tried to counteract or reply to or respond to whatever it was, whether it was a conversation or an email or whatever that might look like. And now I think that I've gotten to a place where I do give myself a beat before I respond back. And I think that I've been able to be more pointed in my responses, but also be more professional in the way that I respond. And, you know, I think it's just I'm a work in progress, and there's very much a learning curve when it comes to that.

43:07No one gives you the CEO handbook of how to present yourself.

43:11Jeannette:So I'm very much learning as I go. But I think just sleeping on it, thinking through it, and I would say on top of that, because we were go, go, go for so long, I've learned to celebrate the small wins. Because I think I never gave myself a chance to do that. I just felt like I was above water at all times. And now I can finally just sit back and enjoy the small wins that we have and make sure the team knows as well and rewarding them and celebrating their wins as well.

43:41Luna Aziz:well two really um powerful but simple but powerful pieces of advice and um yeah so true absolutely and luna you know if you could describe this year in one word what would it be and why i

43:53Jeannette:think peace would would be something that really sticks with me because entrepreneurship is chaotic it's messy uh there is a lot of bleeding between work-life balance i don't know that i had a lot balance to be honest in the first several years I think finally I have built out a team that I trust implicitly they are just so capable so competent that I can finally just sit back and let myself heal let myself recover from the many years of burnout and still feel like I can do the things that I'm passionate about the things that I want to do and let the team do the things that I know they're good at so finally just being able to take a breath which is just it's very refreshing to finally have that kind of that pressure off of me a little bit

44:39Luna Aziz:yeah I don't think anyone has had the word peace so that's a new one for us Luna and I'm really pleased that you've added that to our our sort of you know linguistic deck of words for the year so thank you for that I'm glad we don't liar yeah no it's good it's good and Luna we have a playlist the Brave Bold Brilliant playlist on Spotify. What's your favorite track, song to dance around the kitchen, last song before you die? What are we going to add to our playlist from you, Luna?

45:10Jeannette:Okay, it's not a song, but my 10-year-old is obsessed with Coldplay. That is all we listened to in the car for the last like month. So anything to do with Coldplay, I didn't realize how big they were. I'm obsessed with all of their songs. I mean, I grew up with them as well, but it's just funny that somehow he's kind of reinvigorated this love for Coldplay and the family. So that's all we listen to in the car, at home, everywhere. So yes, I can't say there's a specific song, but Coldplay would be.

45:39Luna Aziz:Great. Well, we will choose one for you. We'll choose a banger for you from Coldplay. I appreciate that. And Brave Bold Brilliant, Luna. What does that mean to you when you hear that?

45:51Jeannette:I think that is finally being comfortable in your own skin and I know that very much for me I'm 40 years old it took me a long time to get to this point I'm not the person that I was at 25 or when I had my first child or even my second child it's been a journey very much I think being able to set boundaries and hold to those being able to say no even if you look a certain way or someone throws out the b word because I think there is that very much fine line between being a direct person and being a bitch. Hopefully I can say that, especially when it comes to being a woman. I think that unfortunately that's kind of what we are categorized if we are direct.

46:33Jeannette:But yeah, no, just understanding that it's okay to have boundaries and be able to put your foot down when it comes to them.

46:41Luna Aziz:Yeah. Well, what a great way to end the podcast, Luna. Thank you so much for coming on. I've really enjoyed the conversation.

46:48Jeannette:Thank you. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

46:54Luna Aziz:So for all of you listening today, I hope Luna Aziz's story has inspired you to take ownership of your vision, your business and your impact. You know, Luna is a perfect example of how courage, purpose and determination can create change, not just for yourself, but for everyone that you serve. And if you're ready to elevate your business, embrace bold growth, lead with purpose, you know, we're here to support you. You know, through Brave Bold Brilliant and Jeanette Linfoot Associates, we help entrepreneurs and leaders accelerate their success and build a life and a business that's truly brave, bold and brilliant.

47:32Luna Aziz:So take that next step. Connect with me. Apply what you've learned today. But let's turn your goals into reality. So until next time, keep leading with courage, brilliance and the boldness to make your mark. I really hope you've enjoyed this episode of Brave Bold Brilliant. Remember, check out our new website, www.brave-bold-brilliant.com. You're going to find loads of resources on there that's going to help you with your leadership journey and with the businesses that you're trying to scale up and grow. So take care, everyone. And remember, there are no limits to your growth, but it is by being brave and bold that you're going to unlock your brilliance.

48:20Thank you.