How to start a business & stay healthy, Rhian Stephenson, Artah

0:00Today we're joined by Rhian Stevenson, nutritionist, naturopath and founder of Atar, the practitioner-led supplement brand built around a core belief, performance starts with your health. Rian had seen firsthand both in clinical practice and as a founder herself, how many people push themselves to the point of burnout while building a business. Her mission with Atar is not only to create targeted science-backed supplements, but also empower people, especially entrepreneurs, to protect their minds and bodies as they grow their careers. In this episode, Rian is so honest about her own story and gives such practical advice for anyone starting or already running a business because you cannot ignore your health.

0:43And as we know, adrenaline can only get us so far. Hi, Rian. It's wonderful to have you on How to Start Up today. We are going to get into talking how to build a business and stay healthy, which I'm so excited about because we're recording in December and it's bleak out there. But before we get into that, I'd love it if you could introduce Arta, the brand that you founded. Yes, absolutely. So as you say, my name is Rian. I'm a nutritional therapist and founder of Arta. Arta was founded about four years ago now, and we do evidence-based nutrition plans and supplements just to help you live that high-performance lifestyle, whatever that means for you.

1:18And I'm really passionate about Arta because as a practitioner, I know how impactful good quality nutrition and supplements can be to someone's life, especially to someone who's trying to build a business in the midst of everything else. Thank you for doing it because it's so needed. And I think a lot of people who haven't started businesses are like, oh, you're so lucky you have so much freedom and what a wonderful life you live. I'm like, it's the hardest job in a good way and a bad way sometimes. But why do you think founders are so much more inclined to say burnout or not look after their sleep?

1:53Or what do you think is driving that? I think founders perpetually live in that red zone, right? Where you are responsible for everything. Everything is uncertain. So there is quite a high level of anxiety. You can always do more, right? There's never a night where I come home where I'm like, I've done all my work. Like I could literally work every single day, every single hour. So it's really hard to draw yourself that boundary. And then when you add on kids, financial pressure, So lots of founders will often at the start work for no money, which is very common. And then you have kids and you have school fees and then you're responsible for the team's salaries and trying to raise money.

2:30It's just the perfect storm of no time, high stress. And I think when that happens and then your sleep starts to get impacted, because again, unless you're proactively doing something every single day to manage your mind at night, you just lay there and think about what more can I do? What can I do? And so then once sleep also starts to suffer, you're in that perfect storm of being time poor, overly stressed and underly slept. And I think that is just a disaster for health. Yeah. Burnout, hideous. And anyone, and it's, I don't want to say it's glamorized, but people go, I really burnt out. And it's like a badge of honor, especially in Britain, I think.

3:07In the US, maybe not so much. In Australia, not so much because health and wellness is so much more at the forefront there. But what would you recommend founders start as a basic habit to get going with their balance? I think the first thing is a shift in mindset, right? Because if you're a founder-led brand or business, you have to view yourself as the primary asset, right? You are the most important thing to that company to making sure it can be successful. So if you don't take care of yourself, it just won't work, right? Like you can only work for so long. So I think understanding the importance of self-care, not in a negative way, right?

3:41I think especially as women, we're trained to think about food and fitness in terms of body weight and how we look, but actually thinking about it in terms of mental performance, mental energy, your ability to make good quality decisions and stay calm when things get tough. That is completely related to your health and how well you feel in your body. And so understanding that you can't separate those two, I think is one of the most important things at the start. Very good point. And I'm beginning after what, six years of being self-employed to understand when everyone says you've got to be okay with a way to responsibility and everyone has said this and it comes in different ways and oh I'm responsible for a team I'm responsible for my clients no I'm responsible for myself which when you're under so much pressure anyway is another level of pressure and that's really hard so you've said performance is personal when did you realize that your health was directly impacting you when showing up as a I think it's hard to hide from a team, right?

4:40So when you're a founder, when you're a team of one or two, it's easy. But when you're showing up and you're supposed to be the leader and you get a bit moody and you're negative and you're on edge and you're irritable, that's contagious, right? You can't expect your team to stay positive and stay motivated if you can't do it for yourself. So I think just having a team is like holding up the mirror and it can feel like a lot, but it's one of the things it's kind of like having kids, right? It's the same. It's the same thing. Like when you can't show up for your kids because you're moody and you're snappy, you can't expect them to be calm because it all starts from you.

5:15And I think that understanding that and not getting angry at it, because at first you can be like, it shouldn't matter what kind of mood I, because you can find it a lot. But really, like being a founder is about taking ultimate responsibility, right? And so it's all about that, keeping the growth mindset, being like, okay, like, it's all about me, not in a self-involved way, but how I show up will be reflected in how my team shows up, right? or yeah so I think things like that and then also just understanding so when I was young I was a competitive swimmer so everything I did was about making my performance as good as it could be but whether that was sleep or recovery or food and then you go into the world and you don't have that and it takes you quite a while to link well actually it's the same right like if you want to run a business well or even be a top employee or run your family you need to give yourself the tools to perform because it's tough, right?

6:12So really when you are a founder, I think it's about understanding that like how you show up every day, that's your performance, right? Not in a performative inauthentic way, but just like what you want to do is really linked to how you feel, right? So I think again, it's just going over that and making sure that is at the front of mind all the time. So definitely I have learned from every single guest that it's mandatory. You have to look after yourself. But you had some professional training and some obviously great coaching in younger years. For people that haven't been a professional swimmer, what would you recommend to them to understand their own biology?

6:49Yeah, it's super hard. So look, I think one of the things that nutritionists love to get people to do, and people find it quite dull, but it's so powerful. It's just a food and energy log, right? Just track yourself for three weeks, for one month, not for three days, and just see what am I eating? How am I fueling? Am I crashing with energy? Am I sleeping well? Understanding how you eat as an overall pattern I think is really important. And we don't often think about it in a realistic way, right? If you ask me now how many coffees I have a day, I'd probably say two. Because in my head, two's my limit.

7:25But actually, if I tracked it, it creeps up to four very easily, very easily, right? So it's not that we're lying intentionally. It's that you get into automatic mode and you just start doing habits that maybe don't necessarily feel you as they should. So first of all, understanding your dietary pattern, I think is really important because everything starts with food, right? Even if you don't have time to exercise, you have to eat. So making sure that food is the fundamental kind of pillar of your health is extremely important. And it's the thing we know the least about and are taught about the least.

7:58And so we really need to take it upon ourselves to understand that. Whether you do the research yourself or you see a nutritionist, it has to work for your lifestyle. But that really is the core. Then you have to think about movement, right? Like movement is so important, especially for founders who can be trapped at their desk for 16 hours, right? Right. Technic. Yeah. Yeah. And just not even getting hair and not even getting movement. Right. So you have to find a way also to get some type of fitness in that A, you enjoy and B, you can do. Right. So like one of the mentorships I had to make when I left my first business, which was a fitness brand where I could train anytime for free for a whole hour.

8:37I didn't have kids. Right. So I could easily go and do a couple classes. Then to being a founder at home with two kids is that I'm never going to have the perfect workout. It just won't happen now. So I just have to be super positive about what I can do. So now like I'm super happy. If I can do a 20 minute hit, I'm happy. Whereas five years ago, if you said you can work up for 20 minutes, I'd be like, it's not worth it. I'm going to do 20 minutes. It's got to be an hour because you have this idea of what the perfect work like. You also really need to let go of that. So something's better than nothing.

9:10Absolutely. Yeah. And it's about that consistent habit. And the more you do, the more you can do, right? Because I think also when you're unstructured and you are thinking about adding things into your life, it can feel very overwhelming. But actually once you have fitness and nutrition as a backbone, you unlock so much more energy because when you train, you have time to switch off, right? You get the clarity, you can get ideas, or you just have a break from your phone and from your computer when you eat well so your blood sugar is controlled instead of going like this you feel more calm you aren't as irritable right so it feels like a lot at the start and that's normal but actually it gives you a lot more freedom within your week it's interesting we're talking now because i'm coming up to the end of a 12-week program i've worked with someone who's looked at my hormones my nutrition and my movement my fitness and my water and my sleep and my brain fog and it's all talking to each other and having a good night's sleep where you feel rested and energized you can do anything you can take over the world if you slept well and then if you added movement and strength and then upping your weights and things like that i'm in mid-40s it's i can see the difference and i am a better version of myself at work and i enjoy my day more but it feels weird when you're busy and you've got an endless to-do list to take that time out for yourself and actually bumped into a few people at the gym yesterday saying like I haven't got any time but I needed to take the time to do a gym workout because you're then more efficient so if you have to hack it the other way it's like you'll actually be better at your job if you do that 100 % yeah I forget who said it I think it was an athlete but they were talking about if you don't have the discipline to train you're a slave you're a slave to your mood, to your energy, to what you feel like that day, right?

10:56So it all starts with that self-discipline, not in a punishing way, in a way where it's, no, this is how I take care of myself and this is how I perform. Because if not, if I had to rely on motivation to go and have a run, I just wouldn't do it. I've always got work. I'm tired. It was pouring with rain this morning. I went for a run and I was talking myself out of it for a good 20 minutes. I'm not going to run. I did it and I feel so much better. I feel so much happier. I can't wait for the perfect weather or the perfect amount of energy or the perfect anything because you're just gonna be waiting forever.

11:31So I think something that people ask me tons is how do I stay motivated? And I just say, I don't, I'm not always motivated. Sometimes I find it so hard. I miss so much with my kids. I don't see my friends as much, but I'm disciplined. And the discipline is the stuff that gets me through. It's when I can enjoy myself more, I can feel better, I can feel healthier. I can be more present with my kids because I've taken care of my mind. Oh, I love that. And then also when you show up for work and your team, you'll be the best version of yourself as well. So if somebody's thinking about starting a business and they're currently employed by somebody else and they've got a kind of mandated week, and I miss this in a way that I used to get up at six, go to the gym, get the bus to work, be at my desk by nine, do what I was told.

12:12And having someone else tell me what to do felt like quite a luxury now. Someone just tell me what to do. I don't want to make any more decisions. I don't want to have to decide. Yeah, I know. It's really hard. There's a huge mental load. I miss having a boss some ways because also there's no one that you can, and this sounds terrible, but there's no one you can blame. There's no one you, oh God, that person's asked me to do this. I don't. It's all me. So hard. Yeah. What would you recommend a new founder do to prep themselves if they're about to enter the world of self-employment? I think just going in eyes open, right?

12:41Like understanding that this is a test of your mental capacity, I think is really the key. I think you really need to have a plan to take care of yourself to understand that it's going to be mentally super challenging and something has got to give. And so you have to prioritize that. I think you have to surround yourself with a really good team. I think sometimes founders are inclined to hire people like themselves because you build the rapport really easily and you're like, oh yeah, it's familiar. Yeah. You need people with the right skill set and they don't necessarily need to be like you, but they need to be able to contribute.

13:17So understanding how important a good team is, I think is really important. And then even maybe finding a mentor, right? I remember when I ran the fitness business at the start, I was so overwhelmed because I was like, I don't need, I don't know how to do this. Like, how do you even be a CEO? Like what do CEOs do? And I remember calling this person who then became a mentor and I was like, what do I do? What, how do I get this done? And he said, look, being a CEO, I was just making calls all day, every single day. Like 80 % of them are going to be wrong or not quite right. And then you have to wake up and do it again and say, and it's just repeat.

13:50You have to learn from every decision that you make. You have to be completely open to critique, right? Not in a bad way, but again, it's in that way. Think of yourself like an athlete. Even when athletes win, their coach will tell them, okay, your arm was good here. Your elbow could be higher because every single time you do it again, you want to be better. So it's about understanding that everything you do is a bit of a test. It tests, learn, and go again. And just understanding that so much of it is a mental game, I think, is really important. And then because of that, just being super passionate, right?

14:24Because I think there's a romanticism of being like self-employed or being a sounder. It's super hard. Like you said, it's super hard in the best way, but it is not romantic. I sometimes see my brother and he goes home from work at 530 and he doesn't look at his phone. His weekends are free and he's like, hey, then you'll leave holiday. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so jealous. And so it's understanding also that it's super hard work and it's so rewarding and it's so soul destroying sometimes. And it's two sides of the coin, right? It's like being a parent, right? It's one of the hardest things ever, but it's one of the best things ever.

15:02And so you have to be ready for that ride. academic, which a lot of us, I think, aren't when we start. Oh, God, no. I started off the back of redundancy and just thought, I'm just going to start a company blindly. And everyone else says this as well. If you told me today what I'd have had to have done to get here today, there was no way I'd have done it. But because you're ignorant, naive and blind optimism, you just run and go for it and see what happens. But a lot of what you were saying was around resilience. It's something that you need a deep bucket of. of how would you recommend people work on building their resilience?

15:35And especially if you have to raise money, right? When we raised, I think I got a hundred no's to get three yeses. So it's the rejection or sorry, that's not what it is, but that's how you take it, right? You're like, oh my God, am I good enough? They don't like me. So in terms of building the resilience. So again, it all goes back to those foundations. What are you proactively doing to manage your mind, whether it's meditation, yoga, walking, you know, pages, whatever it is for you, you've got to make sure that's a priority. That's also, again, why I love fitness, because when you train, you teach yourself, you can do hard things, right?

16:13Like you push through, you feel better afterwards. It's really hard. You build confidence when you train. And I think people who haven't gotten into training yet don't understand how powerful that aspect of it is. It's so powerful. It shows you in a completely different environment what you're capable of doing that you can then bring into the work environment. Also, if work's really hard, you can go to the gym, switch off, let off some steam, and your brain has a rest. Yeah. And then again, understanding that what you eat and how you fuel your body will impact how resilient you are is really important.

16:47One of the things I've had to do in the last few years is I've just cut out alcohol. And it's not because I'm saying it's horrible for health, which look, there's obviously no disease, but yeah, but the reason I did it is because I can't cope, right? I cannot cope with the pressure of being a founder and being a mom to two super young kids if I'm drinking at the same time. And that's just, and I'm not saying I'll never have alcohol again. Like I, but right now, if I drink alcohol, I mean, I'm anxious for 10 days. I can't sleep. I'm snappy with my kids. And then I feel guilt and shame, which I already feel because I'm not there as much.

17:25So you have to understand that all of these things will impact you. And so it's understanding how do I have to fuel myself to perform? And it's all about your mind, your nutrition, and your fitness. And I feel for you because you founded a brand in the health and wellness space. You of all people have an even higher boa to live up to in terms of leading by example what led you to found arta yeah look i mean that that's a good point but thankfully i don't feel that way because i founded arta because when i was young i had such a struggle with i was chronically ill as a child and then it took us about 10 10 or 12 years to figure out what was wrong and it was a food allergy so i changed how i ate and i kind of transformed my health through nutrition and supplementation and i was like Like, oh my gosh, this is so powerful.

18:16Like, this is what I want to do. I do have an intrinsic motivation and an understanding of it's far more painful to feel unwell than it is to eat a high fiber breakfast or make a good food choice. So because I've been through that and most people have been through that will say the same, right? It doesn't feel like a chore because I know what the other end of the spectrum feels. So in a way, I think I was really lucky to go through that because it's made being healthy, like a far more natural choice than not being healthy. And then because my education is layered on top of that, I understand which levers I can pull when I need to help myself out, right?

18:56Like when I haven't slept, if I don't eat a breakfast that has a very high amount of protein in it, I'm starving, I'm tired the whole day. so there's little things that you can do there's little levers you can pull and that's one of the reasons i started arta right because i know how transformative taking care of your health can be to every aspect of your whole life well i love that in terms of the levers that all is not lost so i was flying yesterday i'd slept really well and i'd taken actually the arta magnesium and i'd gone to the gym and i did i saw the person i'm doing the training this oh my god my sleep is back and then i completely drink sticks i woke up four times last night i felt really tired this morning yeah but knowing that you've got tweaks you're gonna have a really hyper-routine breakfast that's gonna maybe take the edge off the tiredness and drink more water than i would normally go for a little bit more of a walk some more fresh air it's the tweaking it is a part of the mental load of factoring it into your day you can't just go into your laptop into emails and assume that you're going to be all right and no one else is going to do it for you i think that's the responsibility that you really have to own it which nobody talks about everyone's like oh yes you travel the world an endless holiday i was like whatever what founders are doing that no at least not in the first five years of their business no and actually i found it really interesting is when i became self-employed i started working at co-working offices and i'd see most of the gang in the gym before the office and i thought god everyone's so healthy but you have to to survive it's a non-negotiable and actually we're talking about fiber it's something that I'm seeing a little bit more and more of in the press, and you've just launched Essential Fiber Plus, one of your newest products, which highlights how overlooked fiber is despite its profound effect.

20:38And I didn't know this, that it impacts energy, digestion, cravings, and metabolism. Why hasn't it been talked about sooner? I think it has been talked about. So, I mean, nutritionists have been talking about fiber forever. I remember my grandparents used to take Metamucil, right? So fiber is something that we've definitely talked about for decades, But we used to think of it just in relation to going to the bathroom, right? So if you were constipated, you took some fiber. What we know now because of all the research with the microbiome is that fiber, not only, yes, of course, it helps you feel regular and have good poos each day, to be blunt, but it fuels your microbiome.

21:13And the balance and the health of your microbiome is integral to everything, to your immune system, to your energy, to your mood, to everything. So understanding that and seeing that there actually is a massive and real health gap, right? only one in 10 people in the UK get enough fiber. It's wild. The RDA, which is how much they say we should have is 30 grams a day. So that's the minimum we should have. That's not the ideal. Most adults in the UK get 18 grams out of that. Women get slightly less. And so it's really key to just that foundational health. If you want to feel full and balanced and have good energy and have a good mood, you really need to up your fiber intake.

21:51So I'm not saying you should take a supplement over eating food, but sometimes, you know, the supplements are just the things that can help you get there fast, right? Because changing how you eat, especially as a founder, it can take months. It's really tough. So yes, you absolutely should work on that foundational nutrition in terms of fiber, veggies, your protein. But if you can take something that helps you get there and helps you feel better faster, as long as it's safe, you should do it. As we know, we talked at the top, it's mandatory but taking those small steps to have new habits that set you up and then what's the habits you don't think about them you just roll through a day doing these good things that bolster you yeah but as a practitioner-led uh brand art are tapped into a lot of clinical insight what health patterns are you seeing repeatedly in people that are trying to do it so i think the number one thing is their blood sugar is very erratic so whether it's skipping meals or over fasting or just a bit of a lack of understanding of how important your blood sugar is.

22:50There's a lot of people who have quite a sugary breakfast and then they have tons of coffee. And then at lunch, they may make a healthy choice of a salad, but the salad has not very much fiber in it. It doesn't have a lot of protein in it. So you go your whole day under chronic stress without much substance, without much nutrition. So then you're prone to snacking, right? You're starving, your stress. So you're grabbing the chocolate. So you're grabbing the biscuits or you're having those things that you really don't want to have. And so it's quite a challenge to, to shift that. I think it's really important to look at your day.

23:25Like I said, at the start and say, okay, how am I starting my day? If there's only one thing I could do, it's let's change my breakfast, make sure that even if the rest of my day goes completely not as planned, that first meal is really going to fuel me. It's going to satiate me out. I'm going to have protein. I'm going to have fiber. I'm going to have some plants. And really just start with one thing. And you'd be amazed at how much of a knock-on effect that can have. This is it. An adrenaline can only get you so far. And I look back at my first three to six months and I was waking up at four or five in the morning, so excited that I was starting a business and totally fine.

24:00And normally I'd be an eight hour sleeper. And suddenly I was like flying. I was like, this is great. And no wonder you're doing so much. You're basically not sleeping at all. I'm like, I've got so many more hours in the day. I can do so much more. And then I hit a wall and I was so tired and jet lagged from it because your body, whether you want to override it or not, it won't let you, it will stop you and send you massive alarm bells if you don't listen. And on that with female founders, they're also carrying the hormonal and emotional loads that I'll talk about enough. What would you recommend female founders pay attention to when they're building their businesses?

24:35It's even, I think it's even more important for women, right? Because again, like you say, we are, we're cyclical. We don't have the same biology as men. It changes every week. And then on top of that, quite often we carry the emotional load at home. Not always, but it's very common. So understanding that biology is very changeable and that it's not about willpower and trying to white knuckle through cravings. It's about, right? It's about how can I fuel myself? How can I nourish what my body needs and just understanding from there. And I think you said something really good there, which is like your body is saying it, like it's telling you stuff, right?

25:16You have to listen to your body. All of these things, like your periods might start to change. Your bowel habits might start to change. It's really important to just notice what's going on and then just take a moment and say, okay, hold on. Is this just a one-off or is this becoming a pattern? So it's understanding that we do need to make sure that we prioritize our health because whilst you can definitely go pretty hard in your twenties, I did. And I was like, I'm fine. I still look great. I got tons of energy. Like great. No way I can do that right now. And so what you do in your twenties preps you for your thirties.

25:49And so like each kind of five to 10 years preps you for the next. And as we go it towards perimenopause, understanding that your physiology changes, you will become less whether you like it or not, right? Like we become more insulin resistant, we lose the estrogen. So our minds, we're just so much more complex in a great way, but in a way that means if we don't take care of ourselves, we're in for a pretty rough ride. And so making sure you're doing it as soon as you can, I think is good. Not out of fear, not out of kind of panic, but just out of, I want to feel great. Like I want to still perform really well and feel great and look great and have a strong mind for as long as possible.

26:30So it's about taking that power back. Yeah, it hit me a year or two ago when friends started talking about perimenopause. I'm a problem solver, especially in constant podcasting. There's always a way around a problem and you don't give up. And I'm Chanel trained and you get that result at the end. With perimenopause, I was like, oh, oh, this is going to happen to me. I can't avoid it. I'm going to have to accept it and work with it. And everything that I'm learning, very fortunately from this podcast series, is around that. And it's something that I just have to accept is going to happen. I'm like, oh, this is so unfair.

27:02I think female founders should have different tax benefits. Yeah, that's a whole other conversation about helping to pay for childcare and all that stuff. Look, I think something else that's really important for women is we are trained to have that kind of higher pain threshold to push through to suffering silence. One thing I would say is really important is if you think something's up, go to the doctor, go get some advice. You don't have to suffer in silence. We usually wait far too long to get help, especially now that we know that HRT can be so impactful, can be so powerful when it's done in a proactive way, right?