Dr. Marsie Ross is the CEO of EdLyn Enterprises, LLC. She has a doctorate in Pharmacy and is passionate about inspiring women to embrace self-care without guilt or apology! As a pharmacist, international speaker, author, and integrative nutrition health coach, Marsie loves to arm women with real-life strategies to help them renew, revive and redefine what it means to be a boss, mom, wife and to live healthy and happy!
Read this interview with Dr. Marsie Ross and be inspired to embrace self-care without guilt or apology!
I see that you’re the CEO of EdLyn Enterprises LLC, Marsie would you please share with us how this came about?
That’s a great question; it’s actually one of my favourite questions to be honest with you. So, EdLyn was birth out of sheer frustration. (she laughs). Like most women, when I turned 45, all hell broke loose, my hormone levels plummeted, and my body was really going through some internal changes, and no matter how hard I exercised or how well I ate, my body just would not release the unwanted weight. Also, my moods were just all over the place. And so finally, being fed up, and enduring as much as I could endure, I started to do tons of research, and there’s three things that I discovered. First, perimenopause sucks. (more laughter). The hormone levels that we experience is really the beginning of a long hard road for many women, and I certainly was no exception. The other thing that I found out was that nutrition and exercise were just simply not going to be enough for me to give my body what it needed at this new juncture of my life. Right? And that dietary supplements had to be a part of my lifestyle. So those were the three different things that I learned from the research that I did; really saying, well something is changing, something’s not right. And so, unfortunately, this is when I hit the snag. I went to some of the big vitamin stores and most of them either I had to take seven dietary supplements with at least seven different bottles or the package, if they were all in one, had these unwanted dyes that I just did not want in my body. They added dyes to the pills, and I am like, why is that pill red? I don’t need that. I wanted something that was of better quality. And then one day it just dawned on me, okay wait a minute, I am a pharmacist. (laughter). And not only am I a pharmacist, but I am an award-winning pharmacist. And so that, right there, Gabriella, started my year-long research process on, what was it, the supplement, the vitamins, and minerals the herbal supplements that women over forty really needed? Although I was thinking about myself at first, to be honest with you, but what do we need in our bodies to help us get the nutrients we need so our bodies can trust us, number one, with the hormonal balance and to release the weight with our metabolism going down? What can I do to really keep myself fit and healthy? And so, in March of 2017, EdLyn Essentials we launched our first flagship product which is the Multi-Nutrient for Women Over Forty.
Awesome. Well done, you.
Thank you. Thank you. We’re very proud of this product, and it has helped a lot of women who were in my same predicament really, number one, get the hormone balance that they need, but also feed the body the nutrients to help them release the weight. I love to talk about that product. So, the dyes and having to have seven different bottles, that was a snag, so I thought, you know what? As my team and I developed this product, I wanted to remember that experience. I wanted to remember how frustrating it was for me, to not be able to go to some of these large vitamin stores and get what I needed. So, EdLyn Essentials, our multi-nutrients not only contain everything a woman over forty needs to release the weight, to increase focus, and to have hormone balance, but it’s also packaged with busy mums and busy women in mind. So, everything you need is in one package. But you don’t need to take anything else. You don’t need to have that pesky pill counter. But more importantly, there’s two things, the way that the bottle is even shaped, it allows the woman to keep the bottle on her kitchen counter, or her bathroom counter. Because most women we don’t like clutter, so we’ll put a bottle, if you have five or six bottles that you’re taking from for your vitamins, you’re going to put them under the counter and then inside the medicine counter in the medicine cabinet and it’s like out of sight out of mind, right? And I wanted to eliminate that; I wanted to eliminate the barriers of what exists for us. So, we designed the bottle; we designed the package with no dyes, so busy mums and busy women could get the nutrients they need.
So, this is a very well thought out process, well thought out product?
Yes. We listened to our clients. We deliver directly to your door, so you order online, and your vitamins come directly to your door. And even so, we have auto replenish. So, when you subscribe to auto replenish, you don’t have to do anything, except wait for your products to come directly to your door.
That’s wonderful.
Thank you. We’re very proud of this product because we know that we really are serving women who need these supplements, they need this added benefit to help them with so many things that they need, to help them give their bodies the nutrients they need.
So, Marsie, what is the vision of EdLyn Enterprises and apart from this wonderful product that you’ve made in what other ways are you making a difference and changing lives?
Yes. That’s a great question. I love these questions. And so we talked about the frustrations that EdLyn Essentials was birth out of, but really I founded EdLyn Essentials and also Health and Happy Coaching With Dr. Marsie, out of really a passion that I have to help women not just exist to serve others, but to thrive, thrive, thrive, in their passion and in their purpose. EdLyn means noble protector. I love that, noble protector. And that’s exactly how we feel about women’s health. Now, our ultimate goal is to ensure that each woman that is attached to the Dr. Marsie brand feels inspired and empowered to take charge of her health and happiness. Believe it or not, Gabriella, a lot of women, don’t feel that way. They don’t feel empowered to take charge of their health and their happiness. And you know, I’m a wife, I’m a mum, I’m a CEO, and I know first-hand, all of the uphill battles that women face with sustaining not only a positive body image but maintaining good mental, and emotional health. When I tell you just the sheer numbers of our health statistics for women, it certainly takes the toll, these pressures of trying to keep it all together or faking it till you make it. It can have catastrophic effect on your health, right? Women are dying. When I say catastrophic effects on your health and your relationships and your careers, I mean it, you know. And so, I just really, really love working with women who are ready to get to the good part of self-care so that they can lead effectively, they can sustain quality relationships, and they can have authentic confidence. I love that. Our motto is, healthy is the new beautiful. We love that, healthy-is-the-new-beautiful!
I love that too! That’s a wonderful slogan right there!
(She laughs). And so when you think of EdLyn Essentials, we want people to know that we offer dietary supplements that are made with the highest qualities of vitamins and minerals and herbal complexes. We believe that this is truly the missing piece that women have been looking for. It’s no magic pill; I always tell women that, there’s no magic pill if you want to have sustainable results. That’s including dietary supplements, that’s including EdLyn Essentials, we are not a one-stop shop. We always tell our clients to repeat this mantra. Are you ready? Nutrition, fitness, supplements, leads to balance, strength, and longevity. And so, Gabriella, what this says is that not one thing works alone. So often we have the nutrition, but we’re not working out. We’ll have the fitness, but we’re not eating right. We’ll have the supplements, but we may not be eating right. So, they all go together. They say you cannot outwork a bad diet. And you cannot maintain good muscle tone or good heart health without movement. And you really are not likely getting all you need for all your required nutrients from your diet. But when you combine nutrition, fitness, and supplements, you will truly find balance, strength, and longevity.
That’s awesome. I like that. I like that mantra.
Yes. And we love it. We love to talk to women, we love to talk to our clients, and we also have three, plant-based detoxes; we have a colon cleanse, we have a parasite detox. Did you know, that almost three million Americans have parasites in their intestines? And then we have a liver detox. And all of these detoxes are plant-based. So, it’s not introducing any harsh chemicals to the body. So, we love it. We’re very excited.
I’m excited too!
Yaay! And so people can go to edlynessentials.com to get all the information they need about EdLyn Essentials. And they can also reach out to me there too.
Okay. Marsie, what does it mean to be a healthy woman and how can that be achieved? I think you’ve shared a bit about that but is there anything else that we need to know about what it means to be a healthy woman and how it can be achieved?
So, health is all about balance; being able to balance the give and take of life. The give and take of having a career, the give and take of raising a family, nurturing a relationship or marriage, and for me, doing endless laundry. (She laughs). Endless loads of laundry. So, it’s all about balance. And to be healthy is like, you think about it as being a multi-faceted state of being. Your health is not just your body, but it also includes your mind, your emotions, and your spiritual well-being too. So, thinking about yourself in totality, as a whole person, that includes your physical, your mental, your emotional, and your spiritual being. And so, when you’re out of balance or imbalanced, when any of these parts of yourself is out of wack, as we say it, it means you’re neglecting a part of yourself. And that’s really when you become unhealthy or even unwell. So, wellness, being well is the absence of disease. So, when you’re unwell, you have a disease, but your disease is not just physical, it can be mentally, emotionally and spiritually unwell or unhealthy, right? So, what I’ve found, Gabriella is that most of my clients, want to do right, they want to be healthy and happy they don’t just know how. But, not only do they not know how, but they don’t have the support. Our society is not structured to really support women’s health care. This is the time of the woman, the world is saying, this is the year of the woman, this is the time of the woman, and so most people are saying, do more, have more, buy more, accomplish more, and so when you have someone who wants to do less, society is not always supportive. They think, step on the gas, even when the car is out of control. And so, you need that support, that accountability. You need someone that is saying to you, if you actually stop the car and you shift, you’ll be able to accomplish more. You’ll be able to be in a better place to receive all these things that you want in life; to become the best person that you can become so that that version of you is what you give to your family, to your friends, and to your career. And so, with the Healthy and Happy Coaching With Dr. Marsie, we have actually three main areas, I have workplace wellness, so I work with companies, to help them bring wellness programme to the workplace because a healthy and happy employee is ultimately a more productive employee. If you can be healthy and happy at work, guess what version of you-you’re going to give to the client? A better version, a healthier and happier version. So, employers are finally starting to understand that they need to pour into their employees’ health because not only does it help their insurance plans, but it also increases productivity, it enhances company culture, it’s amazing what is happening in the workplace. So, I’m really proud of that work, but we also offer a private, and small group coaching programmes as well, and I do wellness workshops. I do wellness workshops with a group of women, and we just talk about some real-life strategies to help them to embrace self-care.
Awesome. So, what is self-care, what are the benefits and how can women practise self-care?
Okay, Gabriella. I keep saying that these are good questions, but this one is my favourite, I promise you. You want to know why, it’s because you said, practise, practise self-care. That is the keyword, practise self-care. As wives and mothers and sisters, friends, daughters, CEOs, entrepreneurs, we are always in jeopardy of either, one, giving our time for self-care away, or having it just simply be buried under our endless to-do-list. It’s hard; it has to be a daily practise. So, for me, when you first mention self-care to women, I often hear, what? “Oh, I get my hair and my nails done every two weeks.” That’s how they equate it. “Me and my girlfriends take an annual trip every year.” And I find that women, they’re proud of that. They’re very proud that they’ve been able to keep their hair appointment and keep their nail appointment and go on these trips as if it was the crumb that was left out of all the things that they give to people. They held on to that appointment, and they held on to getting their nails done, right? But self-care is so much more than that; it’s so much more. But when I also ask that same woman, when did you have your last well-woman visit at your doctor? When did you have a check-up, a well check-up, not that I’m sick, I’m not feeling well, your well-woman visit? We should all go to our doctor once a year for a well woman visit. When I ask them about that, that is not on their schedule the way that their hair and nails is on their schedule. When was your last dental check-up? When was your last eye exam? When did you have your mammogram? And guess what, Gabriella? This is not even self-care. This is self-preservation. We haven’t even got to self-care yet. But, it’s just a reminder for us that we are truly neglecting ourselves. Truly. Truly neglecting ourselves. And so, when you ask me about self-care, it’s an awareness of it, it’s an awareness of the neglect. It’s where it first starts. A mindset shift, and then you start to think about self-care, it’s all about you. So how uncomfortable does that make most women? Very uncomfortable. To be able to think about ourselves, it makes us feel selfish, unfocused, uncommitted to work, we feel like we’re not part of this women’s movement, that we should be doing more, demanding more pay, we should be somehow part of this movement, if we are thinking about ourselves, we are taking our eyes off the price. So, self-care, when you ask, what is self-care? Self-care is about you, self-care is about self-discovery, self-care is about nurturing your interest and finding time to hear your own thoughts and to pour into you. Why do self-care, and what are the benefits of self-care you ask? It’s about nurturing yourself. When you give yourself the grace to nurture yourself, you give yourself the opportunity to continue to evolve as a person. You don’t disappear just because you become a mum or a wife or an executive. You cannot hide behind those titles. You still have to evolve. What are your interests? What do you like to do? Who are you? And when you have self-care, you don’t lose yourself in all of the things that you have to do. You don’t fill yourself with resentment. Because if you’re not pouring into you, if you have poured yourself out until your cup is empty, then what are you pouring on your family? What are you pouring on your friends? What are you pouring on your career? Oftentimes for women, that answer is resentment, is burnout, is anger, is impatience, intolerance, right? But when you pour into yourself, when you have self-care, you pour love in, patience in, grace in, peace in, you are able to then fill your self-care cup up until it overflows, and then you feed your life from the overflow. You fill your self-care cup up until it overflows. Love on yourself so much that you’re overflowing with love and patience and mindfulness; mindful eating, mindful health so that it overflows and then you feed your life from the overflow. I never, or I say, I fight hard to not get into my self-care cup. My obligation to my family, my friends, and my career is to fill my self-care cup until it overflows. My family, they don’t know the difference between my cup and my overflow. The love for them is the same. If I pour enough love in, what I’m giving them is love. And they love that love. But my overflow? Yes, that’s magnificent. But the only people that suffer when we don’t fill our cup up is us. Most of the time, our family, we think that they’re not suffering, but in the end, they do suffer, they do feel it. They do feel our impatience, they feel our frustration even no matter we try to hide it, but people see that we’re not fully present in some of the things that we’re doing. And so, I tell people, fill your self-care cup up until it overflows and then feed your family and your life from the overflow.
That’s wonderful. Now, still, on self-care how did our mothers and grandmothers survive without self-care?
So, one of the things you need to think about too, our mothers and grandmothers certainly most grandmothers, did not work outside the home. They didn’t have a full-time job or side hustle; now both parents have to work just because the economy today does not typically support one person in the household working. We need as much income in order to survive nowadays with inflation. So, they didn’t most likely work outside the home. They may just have done some side jobs or done something else. And a lot of women, predominantly, if they worked outside the home, they were teachers, or they were secretaries because that was what was offered to women at the time, that was what was available. Which means that oftentimes, they were home by five or they were home by the time the children came home and they started what is called the second shift. They also suffered in silence. It does not mean that they did not suffer; they just suffered in silence. We grew up in a time when it was said, what happens in this household stays in this household. They often times would be broken down but would put on a happy face or they would be faking it till they made it. The other thing is, when you look at the health statistics for women, they’re bad, especially heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of women, more than all cancers combined. We lose a woman almost every eighty seconds dying from heart disease. So, you look at the health statistics, you look at divorce rates, you look at infertility rate, so when you say, survive, did they survive? When you say, how did our mothers and grandmothers survive without it? My response is I don’t think they survived. We often times are looking at women who struggled, they struggled with it, and now we’re struggling with it. We’re struggling like I said with the health statistics, with the divorce rate because of all the resentment that we feel, infertility for women, fibroid, stress, we’re not surviving. And I will say that without a doubt, we are in dire straits, as a matter of fact.
That is so correct. So, Marsie in what ways are you using your life to inspire women because you had your own season where your health was on the back burner and now you’ve been able to overcome that so in what ways are you using your life to inspire women to embrace self-care without guilt and apology?
Okay. So, I’m Dr. Marsie, right? Dr. Marsie Ross that has two great businesses. But I’m also a mother; I’m a wife. I’m a sister, and I’m a friend. I wear many hats as women do. And what I will say is that I’m very transparent about my life and I’m very transparent about the fact that I’ve put myself first. It’s very difficult to say that, Gabriella, to women, to mothers especially. Because the expectation is that I’m supposed to put my children and my family first and I push back on that because I know that when women object with that, it’s because they have not been able to get over the obstacle of that guilt. It’s a hard thing, it’s not easy, and women need help. We need help to give ourselves permission to release the guilt. So, when I say I put myself first, it’s because I know that the version of myself that my family gets from me, knowing who I am, me loving myself, is an amazing thing, they reap all of the benefits of all of my self-care. And so, I do not put my health on the back burner, but I also have a group of friends that help me to be accountable. I have a life-coach that helps me to keep my balance. I don’t do it alone. It’s too hard to do it alone, so I have help. I have accountability partners; I have friends that check in, I have friends that when they see me speaking at back-to-back speaking engagements or they see me doing this and doing that because I love it, I love it. I love helping women, but I always have to remember that before I’m Dr. Marsie Ross, the self-care crusader, I’m Marise, and that’s who I have to honour, right? I have to spend time with God; I have to be still. If I am just running around and I’m not grounded, then what am I going to be able to give my clients? I will be no good. And so, it’s because of my love for what I do for women, that I have to pour into myself. And like I said, I don’t do it alone, I have people that help me.
So, it’s important that a woman has a support group or some kind of mentorship?
Absolutely. You can’t do it alone. Number one, because it’s too hard; because the world is waiting to snatch up that time that you have set aside for self-care, but also, there’s a process for self-care. You don’t just say; oh, I’m going to have self-care because there’s a process to getting there. And so, what I do is that I walk women through that process. What I love is like sustainable self-care because it’s not like a quick fix and so it is a mindset shift, it’s a lifestyle shift, in order for you to truly see the benefits of it. When I say benefits, I mean, not just with you, you get to see what self-care can do, for your family, for your career, it’s just an amazing, most beautiful, beautiful thing that so many of us are caught in the rat race that we can’t see. We can’t get off the hamster wheel long enough to see that we’re spinning out of control.
The next thing I want to know is this; in your opinion, is the idea of a work-life balance a possibility? So, can a woman achieve the right balance with all of the responsibilities in her life without caving in and dropping one of the balls? Can she juggle all of them, successfully?
Work-life balance is tough, right? I think it’s more about prioritising. You get balance when you prioritise; when you don’t try to do it all by yourself. Balance comes with letting go of control. Sometimes, you need to drop some of those balls. You have too. I love the book, that Tiffany Dufu wrote, Drop the Ball. It’s beautiful. You have to drop some of those balls. You have to realise that, guess what? I can travel and clean the house and do the laundry, but I need help. It’s getting the support you need to live the life you want. It’s letting go of the I. Superwoman is a fictional character, she’s not real. We did not see her have a mortgage, a husband, children, go to the gym. We didn’t see her have to cook dinner, we didn’t see her do those things, and so that’s why I do not subscribe to the superwoman syndrome. And that’s why I call myself the self-care crusader and I’m trying to build an army of crusaders. Because when you are okay with putting your needs first, it does not mean that you neglect your children, your family, your career. What it means is that you are committed to becoming the best version of yourself so that then you can give back that version to the things and the people that you love. And so, I do believe you can have balance; I do believe that when you have self-care, and you spend that time with yourself, and you know yourself, to thine own self be true, then you know, and you’re more perceptive of when you’re out of balance. That is what self-care does. It allows you to be mindful of your limitations, to be mindful of your words, to be mindful of your actions. And so, I do think that you can have balance when you don’t try to balance the world on your shoulders.
So, what is the connection between a woman’s physical, emotional, and mental health?
I think it’s all connected. I don’t think you should try to separate it. You come here connected. (She laughs). And so, you should be thinking of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and I would even add spiritually. You are a whole self, and so when you are disconnected that is when you are truly not plugged into your life, that is truly when you may miss God’s message for your life, that’s truly when you may miss His signal, that your marriage is in trouble, or that your children are in trouble. You have to be connected as a whole person and in your whole self in order to see life clearly.
Now, about the work that you do, what do you find most challenging and what brings you the greatest fulfilment?
So, the thing that’s most challenging to me, Gabriella, is when a woman just can’t give herself permission to embrace self-care. It is a challenge because so oftentimes, we don’t invest in ourselves. Now, if we think that it is a quick money scheme or that we’re going to get some type of monetary payment, then we’ll invest. If we feel that we may go to a dating site or do something where we feel that we may get a partner out of it, then we invest. If we feel that we may get a position or a promotion, then we invest. But we’re not always investing in something that we feel like, oh, what’s this going to get me? When you think about, oh what am I going to get out of this? Okay, not only can you actually save your life given the numbers with heart disease for women, but you can also save your marriage, you can also find your true purpose, you can also live healthy and happy. Because if you’re not healthy and happy, what’s the point? What’s the point of having a career, having a big house, having a husband, and children, if you’re unhealthy and unhappy? So, being healthy and happy should be the ultimate goal, and we should seek out anybody that can help us get there. So, it’s a challenge to me but that’s also my greatest reward when you can have a woman who was so focused on serving other people and serving money, serving things, serving concepts and serving perfections, trying to make everybody think everything is okay when everything is not okay; hiding and suffering in silence. When you have a woman, who comes into the light, oh my gosh, it’s amazing. When you take a woman from A to B, no, when she takes herself because we do it together, but she has to decide first. And so when a woman decides to make self-care a priority and they connect with me, and I watch them become the person that they used to be, when they discover or re-discover themselves it makes it all worth it. It’s a beautiful thing, and so my programmes are actually tailor-made for women who have so much on their plate, woman who have kind of fully discovered themselves.
Okay. Now, that we’re talking about rediscovering and redefining and all of that, what are some real-life strategies that you share with women who want to renew, rediscover and redefine what it means to be a boss, mum, wife and to live healthy and happy?
So, my programmes are all about real life, right? So I already said that I wear as many hats as they can wear, as a mum, a sister, I’m the older child, I’m the daughter, I have a best friend, I have so many friends, clients, and so I’m all about real life strategies. I think that that is key and what I tell people is that there really are three steps; the first, that is key that sets the stage for everything, is to decide. And I was at a meeting two weeks ago, and I heard someone say something, and this stuck with me. He said wherever you go or find yourself in life; your mind got there first. So, it basically says you are where your mindset takes you. If you feel like you can’t do it then most probably you can’t do it. Wherever you go in life, your mind got there first and so when a woman decides that she deserves self-care, then that is the first step. That is the key thing that really prompts her to reach out to me. And so, I tell women, once they decide, that is everything. Because most of the time, we live with these blinders on, we’re so busy serving, serving, serving, that we don’t take care of ourselves. And so, deciding is key. After they decide, the next thing is to define what self-care means to them. It seems kind of intuitive, but it’s not, because most of the time like I said, women think self-care is getting their hair and their nails done or going on an occasional trip. They don’t really realise that self-care has nothing to do actually with your nutrition your diet or your supplement. Right? That’s just basic living. You do that so that you can survive. I don’t even think that’s self-care. Deciding to take action, to take care of yourself, yes, that’s part of self-care, but we should all be trying to eat right, we should all be trying to move daily, and we should all be taking our supplements. So that’s the basis of being healthy. Right? So, defining self-care, the process, it’s a process of discovery. So, I take them through that process, of defining what self-care means to them because self-care is different for every person. My self-care is not your self-care. My journey is not your journey. And so, with my programme, we actually take a woman on a journey to self-care and so deciding and then defining, and the last part of the process is committing. You have to commit to it because like I said, the world keeps trying to take it away. The world will try to put something on your plate, and if you’re not grounded or committed to your self-care, you will gladly just scoop that self-care right on off your plate. Okay, I have room over here, I’ll give up my own in order to do this project or to advance my career or to take care of the house, or to take care of the children or to do something for my parents. And so committing to it is key and so that’s the real life strategy or the process that I take a woman through to really embrace her self-care without guilt or apology.
Wonderful. Thank you, Marsie for talking with us, how can the readers contact you?
I am on all things social media. I’m @Dr Marsie so you can find me on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, on Periscope, on YouTube, as @Dr Marsie. And if anyone wants to know about our coaching programme, I invite them to email me at readyththrive@drmarsie.com, and I do complimentary discovery calls if you want to talk about self-care you, want to do better, you’re ready to live healthy and happy, just email me and we can get you scheduled as soon as possible. And for a limited time, I am actually offering a four-week intensive private group coaching for just $497, and I wanted to offer this because so many women want to embrace self-care, but they just don’t know how. And our programmes are designed to help them get the help they need so that they can have sustainable success in their marriages, relationships, business and of course, in their health.
