Two women. One supplement company. Zero plan to become best friends.

Jewel Zimmer and Taylor Lamb co-founded Juna out of a simple frustration: neither of them could find what they actually needed. Jewel healed her postpartum experience through amino acids after conventional approaches left her without answers. Taylor spent three years with terrible gut health, acne, and depression before she did her own research and discovered that plants were the thing nobody had thought to suggest. When they met through mutual contacts in the marketing world, the connection was obvious. The company followed.

In this conversation, Jewel and Taylor talk about the science and philosophy behind Juna, what it actually means to build from the root cause up rather than chasing symptoms, and why they believe plants carry something synthetics simply cannot.

They also go back. Jewel grew up in a small mountain town in British Columbia that never felt like hers, moved to Europe at thirteen when her parents sold the house on a whim, and moved out on her own at sixteen because she needed out. She found her way to culinary school, then to some of the best kitchens in the world, then to cannabis, then to Juna. Taylor was diagnosed with ADHD in school, rebelled her way through high school in all the ways that look bad on a report card and excellent in retrospect, built her graphic design and brand skills one gig at a time, and became one of the most respected brand builders in the women's wellness space.

The doctor who diagnosed Taylor told her parents not to worry. Most CEOs have this, he said. She'll be fine.

He was right.

🎙️ Meet Bridget | Season 6, Episode 162

Content note: This episode includes brief discussion of a history of amenorrhea and a stress fracture connected to undereating during the guest's teenage ballet years. It is discussed as a resolved part of her past. If this is something you are navigating, support is available through the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline.

Jacquelyn Umof trained as a professional ballet dancer before a fractured tibia at seventeen ended that chapter of her life. Her mom signed her up for a Pilates class to get her out of the house. She got certified at seventeen, walked into a USC gym with zero teaching experience, and asked for a job anyway. That is basically how she has done everything since.

In this conversation, Jacquelyn talks about building Bar Definition from a beach camera and thirty videos into a real business, the years of bootstrapping before she would let herself spend real money on ads, and the moment her now-husband convinced her to make one good ad instead of a post every single day. She talks about collecting certifications not because she needed all of them, but because she didn't have a fitness degree and wanted to feel sure of what she was teaching.

She also goes deep into motherhood: a genuinely painful pregnancy connected to hypermobility, a three hour home birth she calls the hardest and best thing she has ever done, and the recalibration of her relationship with her body and her time that came after. She talks honestly about the pressure to look a certain way after having a baby, and her decision to prioritize breastfeeding over getting her body back faster.

And she goes back to seventeen year old Jacquelyn: quiet, introverted, more comfortable expressing herself through movement than words, competing only with herself, never her sister. The tibia fracture that looked like an ending turned out to be the beginning of everything she has built since.

🎙️ Meet Bridget | Season 6, Episode 161

Resources: National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline

No guest this week. Just us.

We have been thinking a lot about the difference between vulnerability as connection and vulnerability as performance. About what it means to go through something hard in an era when everyone has a camera and a comment section and the cultural message is that sharing equals healing.

We do not think that is always true.

In this episode, Asha and Keshiia talk about what it actually looks like to process something hard without putting it on display. The value of cocooning. The small group of two or three people who get access to the raw version. The difference between being honest that you are going through something and live-streaming the middle of it. The way oversharing while you are still in it can actually slow the processing down, not speed it up.

We are both going through things right now that we are not naming here. That is intentional. It is also the whole point.

For anyone who is in something hard and feels the pressure to perform it publicly before they have processed it privately — this one is for you.

🎙️ Meet Bridget | Season 6, Episode [#1160]