Gianne Doherty

5 Reasons to Keep Coconut Oil in Your Medicine Cabinet

January 5, 2018 By Gianne Doherty Leave a Comment

Coconut oil has been on the holy-grail list in the wellness world longer than the phrase “January detox.” And for good reason. Naturally anti-bacterial, this delicious smelling, multi-purpose staple has earned its place in our medicine cabinet. But it’s more than just a moisturizer—here are five ways to use it anew this year.

Before your shower.

DIY Body Scrub: I love a good scrub. Full disclosure, my company, Organic Bath Co., has an entire line of crowd-pleasing scrubs. Cult favorite? Java Jolt! But if a Java Jolt isn’t handy, I can easily mix up a simple exfoliating scrub with coconut oil and sugar. My skin definitely misses the nourishing blend of oils we use in Java Jolt, but in a pinch coconut oil and sugar will do the trick.

Hair Mask: High in protein, vitamin E and lauric acid, coconut oil makes a great hair mask as a base or on its own. Leave on for at least 10 minutes.

In the shower.

Shaving Oil: I’ve used coconut oil as my shaving cream plenty of times and it leaves my legs smooth and moisturized. Warning: This will clog the razor if you don’t rinse it well with hot water, so don’t use your boyfriend’s good razor. Been there, done that. Learn from my mistakes. 🙂

Out of the shower.

Skin Moisturizer: I use a shea butter-based body butter most of the time (shameless plug: Organic Bath Co.’s Drenched Body Butter has won multiple awards and is our top-selling product). While coconut oil doesn’t penetrate my skin as much the multiple ingredients in Drenched, it still works well for moisturization.

Hair Moisturizer: A little dab of the oil on dry hair is a great natural moisturizer for your hair. It goes a long way, so I use coconut oil to add a natural sheen to my hair, as well as tame flyaways.

Want more DIY? Try our at-home pumpkin spice or our Manuka honey masks.

Why You Should Use ‘Airplane Mode’ In Your Everyday Life

November 29, 2017 By Gianne Doherty Leave a Comment

If you’ve taken a flight anywhere, you’re probably familiar with a few of the what-to-do-in-case-of-emergency rules. Rule #1? If the oxygen mask falls down, you must apply yours first. Another rule that has popped up in recent years is turning off your cell phone during landing and takeoff. Maybe you don’t turn yours off but do what I do, which is switch into Airplane Mode.

Once I put my phone in Airplane Mode, that’s my cue to settle in for the flight and be in the moment. That means getting comfy and settling in with a book with absolutely no interruptions other than being asked if I’d like a beverage. GLORIOUS!

The act of traveling, actually getting to the destination, can be stressful and yet I have mostly positive associations with it. I’ve recently realized that positive feeling is due to Airplane Mode: No emails, no social media notifications, no texts; it’s simply being however I want to be. I can listen to music, meditate, gaze out the window, talk to my traveling companion or read one of the many books I’ve been meaning to carve out time for.

As an entrepreneur, I could not grow my businesses without technology and yet at times I’ve found myself resenting the very thing I’m so thankful for and have been able to build my community on. Technology (let’s be real: my phone) has slowly been seeping into areas it doesn’t belong: Date nights and every dinner party I’ve been invited to lately. Food is just so photographable!

I found that what I was craving and needing was more time in the metaphorical Airplane Mode. It’s calming and relaxing and a great way to prioritize self-care and time with others. Here’s how I do it in my daily life.

3 ways Use ‘Airplane Mode’ In Everyday Life

Game-ify it: When out to dinner with friends, make putting phones away and in Airplane Mode a competition. Put all of your phones in one bag or the middle of the table and whoever breaks the rule covers the tab!
Compartmentalize just a little: I’m a storyteller for my company Organic Bath Co., and a big part of that storytelling includes pictures. If I’m going somewhere especially picturesque or want to capture a moment, I remind myself it does not need to be uploaded immediately—then I save for later. This small compartmentalization allows me to be present in the moment but also support my business in the long run.
Declare some of your time sacred: In today’s day and age of connectivity, is it feasible to spend the majority of the day in Airplane Mode? No. However, we all have rituals that hopefully bring us peace. Maybe that’s family dinner, walking the dog or gym time. Make that time your daily “sacred” Airplane Mode time… no emails, no social no anything.

Want more tips for holistic wellness? Check out 7 ways to bring your life into sacred balance or these 9 wellness podcasts that’ll inspire.

Top Insider Tips on Speaking WELL from a Conference Founder

August 31, 2017 By Gianne Doherty Leave a Comment

In this monthly column, Gianne Doherty will address different aspects of building a wellness business in her honest, direct, no-BS approach.

As the founder of the first and largest wellness consumer conference in the country, I’m often asked, “What do you look for in a speaker?” As someone who has worked with quite a few speakers as well as spoken at quite a few conferences myself, I’m sharing my top pieces of advice here:

Tailor your message to the conference.
Trust me, I can spot a cut-and-paste job from a mile away. Because we get so many pitches, Conference Founders can tell when the potential speaker has not taken the time to research the conference, learn about the attendees and how they can best serve the audience, and this yields an automatic no on my part. I want to know that you have invested your time and energy in this before I invest my time and energy in you.
Get to know the community.
If a conference is a great fit for you and your brand, don’t just try to a speaker there, be an active part of the community! If you are looking to grow a speaking career and have identified conferences that you would love to speak at one day, invest in your future career and start attending the conference and get to know the community. Competition is stiff. Conferences get thousands of applications, just because you didn’t get accepted the first time you applied doesn’t mean you won’t the next time. Attend the conference in the meantime. Get to know the community and network with other speakers! This not only demonstrates your commitment to the conference, it will help hone your pitch to be the most valuable it can be.
Conferences weigh a variety of factors when looking to hire speakers. Here’s my personal checklist:
- On Point Messaging Make sure your message speaks to their audience.
- Specific Expertise If a conference team researches you, is your messaging and branding consistent? Are you an established expert in 1 to 2 areas? Be real with what you are known for, what you want to be known for and make sure your message is consistent with that. I’ve seen speakers get passed over by speaking committees when the messaging is too all over the place and not easy to understand.
- Professional, Compelling Delivery Have a video reel on your website, so anyone looking to hire you can easily gauge: are you a clear and concise speaker? Do you read from notes a lot? What is your presentation style? Interactive? Lecture?
- Social Presence/Mailing List Conferences need to sell tickets. So a big question conference founders I know think about and try to track when possible is, does this speaker have a built in audience? Can the conference sell tickets because of you? Or do they have to invest in a lot of education and marketing around you and your messaging?
- Professionalism and Enthusiasm Do you seem easy to work with or do you think you are the next Oprah? Unless you are talking to a multi-million dollar company with large production teams, quite a few conferences are independently owned and have a small team. Easy to work with is SO important!
- Hone your delivery! You have a captive audience so now what do you do with them? The best speakers know they are storytellers. They grab an audience’s attention in the first few sentences and don’t let go until their talk is over.
  Make sure you’ve practiced your talk a few times, can deliver it in the allotted time and are so engaging people forget they’re listening and are fully IN IT with you. Gather friends and family to sit in on a presentation and give you constructive critiscism. Study other speakers. Watch Gabby Bernstein, Shawn Achor, or Elizabeth Gilbert. They are masters at storytelling.
- Be nice! This should be a simple one. But you’d be surprised how many people are nice to me as conference founder, but my business partner or team has a completely different (and unfortunately, negative) experience. So if you can’t be nice…perhaps network strategically? 🙂 Conferences will often ask their team, colleagues, other speakers or even their audience for their recommendations. So if anyone is asked, who do they want to hear from? You don’t want to be the speaker who has a great message but challenging reputation.

I hope these tips help! I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below.