What happens when personal grief collides with professional pressure—and instead of breaking, you build something revolutionary? That’s exactly what Nicole Vanderhorst did.
In this episode of Feedback Fix, Collette Revere sits down with Nicole, CEO of WH Farms Co, to talk about her journey from general contractor to cannabis industry changemaker. Nicole shares how the death of her father led her to seek more natural forms of healing, and how that moment sparked a much bigger mission: to destigmatize plant medicine and bring ancient healing practices into the mainstream.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Nicole’s story is a powerful reminder that healing isn’t just personal—it can be an engine for collective change.
Watch the episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple.
Collette: Welcome to feedback fix where we get real about the messy conversations that move us forward. We are a live podcast, which means no scripts, no do overs, just unfiltered, honest conversations happening as they unfold. I'm Collette Revere, and today I'm sitting down with Nicole Vanderhorst, CEO of WH farms CO and a bold, visionary leader reshaping the cannabis space in North Carolina, Nicole, I'm so happy to have you joining us today.
Nicole: Thank you so much for having me, Collette. I really appreciate the invitation.
Collette: So, share with people what you are working on right now.
Nicole: Well, first of all, all things WH farms, Co. we are a vertically integrated GMP and ISO certified botanical manufacturing product development company, as you shared, we are industrial hemp cultivators. So we are USDA licensed cannabis farm that goes directly to finished good. And our belief system is that all consumer goods deserve the infusion of functional therapeutic plant medicine that helps to improve or offer therapeutic benefits. With the rise of toxic chemicals and consumer goods and just an overall elevation of anxiety, pain management, just so many things, so many reasons why we have to tap back into our herbal remedies that are 5000 plus years old and really bring them back into our everyday consumption. So I like to say that we created wh farms co to be the bridge between ancient healing practices and modern science and definitely revolutionize the cannabis industry. So that is what I'm working on. You know, really just destigmatizing, expanding, pivoting, and just bringing as many people, like minded people, along on the journey as possible.
Collette: Oh, man, I am so excited about this conversation. The things that you just like you just said that you are kind of trying to destigmatize, and you're probably constantly communicating with people who don't understand what you do or misunderstand what you do, and you're having to clarify that often. Yeah. So I can tell how passionate you are about this. How in the world did you get started with this? Where did this passion start and how did it grow?
Nicole: That's a great question. So I actually found myself, after the death of my father, just dealing with deep anxiety and grief, and I was just overwhelmed and wanted a way to continue to maintain my performance professionally. At the time, I was a licensed general contractor, overseeing, acquiring, overseeing and developing my own commercial distressed assets and residential distressed assets. And so I needed to perform in this world where I was shouldering lots of debt and needing to turn it around for profit and then also dealing with the real, you know, the reality of losing one of the two parents I was born to. And so I was, you know, really spiraling just, you know, having a hard time managing just the responsibility. And I went to a doctor and the doctor offered, or I went to a therapist and they offered a prescription treatment plan, and I just didn't feel comfortable with the option. And so I, you know, was in Maryland at the time, it was medicinally and recreationally legal, and so I started to think about different CVD options, because I had heard about veterans and other military personnel who had experienced anxiety, and people who were using CBD for anxiety. And when I tried, I tried tincture in my coffee, because I used to have a morning routine of a nice coffee in the morning, and when I would put the tincture in my coffee, I was literally, after about 20 or 30 minutes, like I just felt the I just felt lighter. I just felt like less heavy over time I saw that or experienced less brain fog, and I just felt that I could compartmentalize my thoughts. I felt like a strong I was still showing up at the job sites every day, but I felt more engaged. And I was just shocked. Frankly, I was overwhelmingly shocked at the benefits, and so when I noticed that it has such consistent therapeutic benefits, I became much more aware of not just the power of marijuana, because that's what most people think about when they think cannabis, but I actually started with hemp. And so I was really intrigued by the power in the hemp plant that I felt that we had just begun to overlook. And when I did my research, I realized that hemp, as. As a plant was very well traced back to Chinese traditional medicine, African traditional medicinal practices. And so I realized that this was really not a discovery, but a like almost a reconnection with the plant that has so many therapeutic benefits
Collette: That is beautiful. And what's amazing to me about it is that it was really born from this moment of, like you said, spiraling and struggling, possibly the most you ever had in your life, and then just being drawn to this as a solution, and then finding really as you got into it, how effective it is and how powerful that is, amazing. Yeah. So before we get started talking more about feedback, I'd love to hear your thoughts about what your reaction to the word feedback is, just naturally.
Nicole: It's constructive criticism. You know, it is iron sharpening iron. It's the way that you grow, is through healthy observation of the impact of your patterns, right? And patterns deserve disruption if they don't produce fruit that's consistent with your value system. And so I think that feedback helps to kind of, like, make sure that those alignments are necessary. And so I personally have a positive, like response. When I think about feedback, I don't it doesn't evoke any negative emotion at all.
Collette: Oh my gosh. Okay, so I'm gonna poke. I'm gonna poke around Nicole, okay? Because what you're saying is beautiful, like that is the answer. It makes total sense. You're totally right, and you're telling me like you're feeling about getting feedback, like you show up, okay, if somebody says, Nicole, we need to talk. I scheduled a meeting for us at three o'clock this afternoon, whatever. So as you go into that meeting, what are you telling yourself? How are you feeling?
Nicole: Well, I mean, you gotta build yourself up before you go into a meeting. Okay, having my own personal self build up moment as I'm going in for sure. And you know, I have one of those mentalities that I feel that, you know, I have ultimate responsibility for my response to anything. And so regardless of, like, the grim nature of the feedback, I'm probably going to challenge myself to overcome it in a way that eradicates the sting from it, right? Like, turn the poison into medicine somehow. Like, that's just the way that I look at things like that. And I think that if you, you know, collect a lot of those, whether good or bad. The feedback you collect those types of experiences over time, it just creates a different type of like, mental agility, because you things, you know, like, I think that that's just, that's the way that I look at stuff like that.
Collette: Yeah, I hear that, and I'm trying to figure out which way to go. I have like, three different thoughts, and I think that was so helpful, Nicole, because you are such Okay. Here's I'm gonna go with the other thought, here we go. So when I first met you, you walked into the room and it's like, Nicole, you brought the power with you in the room. And I don't know how else to explain it. I think, I think for women in particular, you can walk into a room and diffuse your power to make other people comfortable, or you can walk into a room and kind of maybe feeling insecure, throw it down. But you did neither of those things. I really you walked into the room and you brought it with you, and I just remember thinking, wow, okay. And then throughout the day, as you were talking and we were engaging, I also saw you being incredibly curious and open and yeah. And so hearing your process is like, okay for the rest of us, humans, not superheroes, just humans that there is hope. Because it sounds like you do have a process where, before you go into something, you are building yourself up. You're preparing yourself mentally for something that possibly. Could be tough and you have this like unstoppable optimism and positivity, that whatever it is, damn it, you are going to turn it into something good.
Nicole: Yeah, I am, I am. I just for the you gotta take the sting out of it in whatever way possible, for sure, and I truly appreciate your compliment. I think you created a phenomenal space for everyone that day, and the exercises that we completed were just amazing. So, but yeah, I do I think that, um, you can't you first of all credit feedback is the response to a historical snapshot of something that was observed. You may not even be that same person anymore. I mean, you might have already changed by the time you get the feedback and so and then the other thing is, if everybody could sit in a space, or hide out in a tree and take snapshots of you in every stage of your life without knowing, because let's talk about it. Collette is women in business. You don't often see women's health issues. They're often not visible, right? So you don't know what the woman next to you is working up against, right? And then we also know that for most women in the workspace, there is that is, you know, however it works. There's another layer of thought that goes into family commitment and all of these other spaces and roles that are played and not that men don't. But there's a different level of responsibility in many instances, and what that means is what you may observe may be very accurate based on your perspective, but based on what I know about myself, and based on what I know that I'm up against, and based on what I know that I'm going through, your observation may be valid, and So is the outlandishness of what you experience, right? Like I might just be having a bad moment, or this might be a bad season, but if I'm honest with myself first, then your honesty with me isn't a surprise. And if I'm clear about where I stand in my posture, then my integrity. I'm going to be, I'm going to be the best version of myself daily, regardless of the circumstances. But if I don't meet the mark a day or two, or I'm not beat, I can't be as great as I desire to be, and then be self like, just self loathing or mean to myself when I have moments of human, of being a human like I have to last so yes, I'm gonna, I'm going to allow that humanity and also receive the feedback and know that well, I'll just turn this around, and then they'll know it's not my character. It might just have been a moment in time.
Collette: Yeah, yeah. That is really beautiful. And what you're and I love how you described it as a snapshot, that by the time you actually get feedback on it, maybe completely, you know, over it could have been a blip. It doesn't have to mean that there's something fundamentally wrong with you or the way that you're doing things, but that somebody noticed an event or a moment in time. How did you get good at this? Nicole, like, where did this happen?
Nicole: I probably have just failed a lot. I think I stuck my neck out as an entrepreneur early in my career, I stuck my neck out as a as an achiever, early in my career, I remember I started in commercial real estate four months after graduating college from the University of Maryland. We all started in associate roles, and so it was like a entry level program for college graduates. And within four months, I was I had, you know, been promoted twice. I was now operating with a huge level of leadership. People that I led were twice my age, and I had this gruesome experience of leadership for like, 10 years that I love the salary, but didn't necessarily love the responsibility, because there were so many dynamics that I had to navigate around. And so as you can imagine, there was a lot of feedback that was provided during that season, lots of feedback, and I took it all in stride, because I didn't know what I didn't know, and I needed it, even if it came with a sting, even if it came with the little unconscious bias, whatever it came with, I knew how to separate it to get what they were really saying, because some of it included a clue. And I needed the clue to connect dots, you know. And so transitioning into growth in corporate America, I stayed in corporate for about 17 years. Then. Into a licensed general contractor, overseeing my own projects, working very closely with clients, builders, you know, general electricians, tradesmen, and just found myself constantly having to stand on my own words, stand on my own name, stand on my own credibility as a business owner and needing to manage that, right? Manage what comes with being humble and understanding that there's a process before, as you deliver a good to a client, there's an acceptance period. So there in comes feedback. There in comes you know, like you know, so you you get used to just not leading with this, with this, from this framework of an ego where it's like, I have to and I have to be the best. It's like, No, I have to be honest, and I have to be diligent, and I have to do my best. But if I, you know, fall short, I also have to get back up and figure, you know, and figure out how to learn from that experience. And when you kind of look at elasticity, it's not about, you know, how wide you can go. It's also about how wide you can go without breaking. And so that's the point that, you know, I try to always be mindful of as someone who's experienced anxiety and mental health and needing CBD and things of that nature. So and then, you know, just all of those experience, especially in business, just gave me. It helped to thicken my skin. It helped to thicken my skin in a way that I'm grateful for, because it takes a lot of feedback to become the best version of yourself. It takes it and, you know, some people, it depends on what you want right out of life. But for me, I set out I'm grateful that I've been designing life for, you know, a while now, been away from corporate for a long time. This is my third career pivot, you know, into the cannabis space, very much so afforded myself a dream to be able to pivot into this industry at this time. And even though I'm starting over in some regards, I'm starting over with seasoned experience, and if this is a hard industry, and if, if it wasn't for feedback, I wouldn't have been able to navigate through some of the nuances. So, you know, you just thick skin. Like thick skin for the win is my time.
Collette: I love this thick skin for the wind. What is it? What I think is exceptional, is that okay, you have this thick skin, you have found a way to receive so that, that I think, is what's exceptional. It's the thick skin, plus being receptive. Because often I will see people go one way or another, so they will be thick skinned and protective and not able to actually receive information coming from others. It's just too threatening, maybe too vulnerable, or people who are accepting everything that comes from other people and don't have that self trust and that inner compass that you have, and how did you learn to trust yourself? Do you remember a moment in time where you were like, Yeah, it's me. I've got this.
Nicole: So, you know, we've spoken before, and you know, you and I share a similarity as it relates to the framework of faith, right? So I'm a woman of faith, and the specific period that I remember learning how to trust myself, I studied abroad while in college, and I lived in nice France. And I remember I also had decided prior to leaving to go to France that I wanted to deepen my relationship with God. So I had all of these books by, you know, Christian pastors, etc, and I was in college at the time, but I just knew, like, they could drink in France, we weren't able to drink it in the US. I was just like, let me just at least take a lot of books so that I could be encouraged to do whatever I think the right thing is. But long short in that period, standing in, really, between two cultures, like an American woman in a French country and things like, you know, I'm not 21 but they begin drinking at 18, or just all of these moral questions about, you know, what's right and what's wrong, even the differences in the language. I had to start trusting my inner guide. I had to start developing an inner guide. I had to kind of get a sense of my personal value system. Hmm, because I was in between two worlds, and I didn't have a family to pull from. There wasn't like this reference point, if you will. It was like, What do you believe? Then it was me and these books, and even those books. I also had other books that talked about, you know, the Renaissance period and other things that I could identify, with. And I think that it was at that point where I was able to make a decision for myself about what's valuable, what my principles are, you know, the framework of my value, how rooted I am in faith. And you know, certainly I even performed. I worked with them, with a missionary group, Calvary Chapel, as a matter of fact, and we used to walk around and talk to people about Jesus and God and all of the things. And I even decided at that point, like I wanted to learn how to hear God's voice. And so I experienced moments in that season of my life where I grew my inner voice and my inner compass. And I think that is the specific season that has really prepared me through adulthood to kind of know how to get back to my center and make decisions from my center and kind of remain have some sort of continuity over time, like even though there are things that change in business, leadership, leadership styles, marketing, all of The things your character shouldn't change over time. You should be known for who you are, and so I'm grateful to have kind of like anchored in that early in my life,
Collette: Absolutely and then you so how do you stay, what is my question is, do things change for you. Do things shift for you in terms of values and anchor values and kind of who you are, and how do you stay anchored now?
Nicole: So I think that I wouldn't say that values shift. Man, they may, they may expand. They may encompass different concepts or life. Life definitely, you know, change. You go through different seasons in life, and you see things a bit differently. Um, so I guess, I guess we can't say that values do shift. And how do I remain anchored? I think I just remain connected. You know, I remain connected. Entrepreneurship requires the depth of who you are, like you are constantly challenged and in ways that require you to identify you know who you are in that moment. You know you define the moment by how you show up for the moment, and showing up for the moment is really pulling from yourself. I think that because this particular industry has been so phenomenal at providing pressure, especially to plant touching, you know, cannabis companies, that I am forced to find myself, you know, kind of revisit my anchor often, you know? And I guess I do it so often that I tip typically don't pivot from it. And I think that that is also helpful, because I don't know if I would have been able to remain as sturdy as I feel like we've been able to be. You know, some of our some of our competitors, are out of business. We are going into our fifth year, and it's only an eight year industry. And, you know, there's been a lot that's happened over this time frame, and we're still going strong. You know, we're very excited about the expansion of growth in the future, and I think it's because I'm very centered in my values and not being so shiny object syndrome, where it's like, oh, let me do that. Oh, let me try this. Like, if you know you can't you gotta be steady,
Collette: Yes. And when you talk to people who are like you said, challenging your work, or just even the idea of cannabis and the acceptable use of it. How do you how? Because you know you're going to be challenged, right? So how do you step into those conversations? What? What do you do internally to prepare for that so that you can hear what's coming to you and also remain grounded in what you know.
Nicole: You know. Fortunately, what do I What? What I say to myself, I remind myself of the very compliant federal and international framework of our business. And so I because what you have to do in my position is I have to be prepared for the projected unconscious bias. It is another layer of discrimination. When you see the plant and the logo you. It becomes a, oh, you know, immediately it's a drug. Immediately is to get you high. Immediately, it should be illegal. Immediately it harms people, and you are the representative of all of those emotions that can be misplaced and projected. So the first thing that I do is remind myself that none of our products are psychoactive. We are USDA licensed. We are federally and internationally compliant, and what we do provides therapeutic benefits and good use for the human body to help improve the quality of lives. And so it's like you have to have that positive self talk so that you don't absorb what is being projected. And I think that that's the first thing. And the second thing that's really important is just professionalism, because if a is correct and B is present, then the outcome should be sound, advanced, progress, business opportunity, understanding all of the things like, if, if, if it is completely legal and compliant and the parties are highly professional, then we should have, you know, there's an outcomes like two plus two should equal four. And so I enjoy making sure that I compliment us a very, you know, risk mitigated business with professionalism, so that we can get to what it should be, what should be the expected outcome. Yeah,
Collette: I love how you talked about absorbing the energy. Isn't that the case so much, where you just show up in a room, and before words are even exchanged, you kind of pick up a vibe of what somebody else is putting off. And, boy, that is powerful. It really can change the game if you're not holding your own energy steady and conscious of that when you go into those conversations.
Nicole: Yeah, I have a niece who plays basketball, women's basketball in college, and I tell her all the time, like, you gotta choose if you're going to be the thermostat or the thermometer. Yeah, at the end of the day, like someone's going to set the temperature, is it going to be you, or are you going to adopt to the room? And you have to know that. So that's a very Yeah. I truly believe in that.
Collette: That's awesome. I've never heard that before, but I can say you are the you are the thermostat. Nicole, just as I talked about you just walking into the room and kind of bringing that energy with you, you definitely have that presence and that ability.
Nicole: Thank you.
Collette: So I want to talk about your most powerful feedback experience, for better or worse. And I'm wondering if you could take us there, as if it's happening right now, so in the first person, so you can say, I'm here, this is what's happening around me. This is what I'm thinking and feeling. And then I'll ask tons of questions afterwards.
Nicole: Yeah, so I had actually just recently graduated college and was a part of a mentorship group to help students bridge the gap from their academic to their corporate career. And my mentor at the time was she worked in a similar industry that I was interested in, but she was on the federal government side and very knowledgeable, a highly respected woman. And so she, as I kind of shared my plans, and she would give us assignments each week, and I would come back each week with my assignment, she said to me, you would like to go from point A to point G without going through B, C, D, E, F, and I think that it's important for you to go through the other steps. And so I remember that piece of advice or feedback, because it's probably the one that's made the most impact in my in the way that I work, because I think that ambition is an emotion, and so it's very it's very natural, you know, to find yourself ambitious in some instances and drive though. I think it's more like a behavioral pattern. And so I've tried to, over the years, make sure that I'm, like, really thorough and going deep, not just going lofty, but like going both up and down at the same time. Because I never wanted the you say feedback both good or bad. The good part about the feedback is that she was able to catch something that I needed to catch. The bad part that I took away from it is that she didn't realize that I wasn't going to take more time. I was just going to do more in the time that I had given myself. So she thought that I was so in her mind, it was like, you know, you shouldn't expect to, you know, as soon as you start working, you're going to make X, Y and Z, you should expect. But I still did that. You know, within six months of starting my corporate. Career, I was advanced twice. I ended up hitting exceeding my salary goal. But I also studied hard. I remember moving like two minutes walking distance from my office, just so that I could be in the office by 4:30am just so that I could be there to kind of study financials and all of these things, so that I can actually show up in meetings and not feel like, you know, the person that just graduated from college. So it was I learned how to go like lofty and deep, but within the same increment of time,
Collette: You're unbelievable. Nicole, I swear. Okay, so this story, I have questions. Okay, so, and I also have questions just in terms of myself and how we're different, and I want to know how, how you do, what you do. So, have you ever taken a Strengths Assessment, the Gallup Strengths Assessment?
Nicole: I'm sure I have. What are the outcomes?
Collette: There's like, achiever, there's executor, yeah, but I'm just seeing I'm like, Wow, you are an achiever, and I have so here's the difference, and here's where I get stuck. Is I'm a beer. This is who I am. I happen to have started my own business and be doing some really hard things. It's because I love what I do, not because I need to do things, because I'll be honest with you, I can just have a happy life just being me, I'm good with that. If I'm being myself, I feel like a 10. If I'm doing something, I rarely feel like a 10. I feel like, you know, whatever my judgment is of what I'm doing, which is never a 10. And so when I hear you talk, and I see you light up about achieving and doing so much more and so little time and just like loving that, I'm thinking, how, where, where? How are we so different? What? So? I guess one of my questions is, so for your, let's just say being scale like you're going to rate yourself one to 10 this, this came from a book that I listened to last year. I wish I could say who, who it was, but this was this exercise that they did to prepare people for sales. Okay, so you're on a desert, a deserted island, and you are there by yourself, and you are just going to rate yourself in terms of your value as a human being in that moment on this deserted island, between one to 10, what are you going to rate yourself?
Nicole: One is not valuable in 10 and high value, and I'm just on a deserted island by myself.
Collette: Standing there by yourself.
Nicole: Yes. What's wrong? A 10, that's what I say.
Collette: I say attend too. But almost no one that I've asked that question two says 10. They say two or six or four. Why? Because they're not doing anything. They're not earning the 10. Okay, so damn you just totally blew my theory about what might be going on with you, Nicole, because we're the same on this so, so tell me what drives you. What is it that feeds you and is exciting to you about doing more in the same amount of time? Because, I'll be honest, I feel exhausted by the thought of by the thought. So tell me what happens with you, because I really want to understand what it what's happening there.
Nicole: I think, you know, I identify early in my career. It wasn't that I chose it. I feel like it chose me, but I feel identified early, aside from before, before I say that, let me say this, I did not choose entrepreneurship because I wanted freedom. I chose to follow the path of the yearning in my heart that would wake me up in the middle of the night, that just it's a burning desire. And so I it wasn't a thing where it was like, Oh, I just want to not have a boss. And I like, I think that I would have had a phenomenal corporate career, but I just could not find peace in not pursuing an unknown path that felt that it was unfolding, the more that I would take it and like, take another step, more would unfold. The. Other side of that is as well. I kinda your question about, like, where do I find like, this, like, where do I get this, this burning desire from I get invigorated through problem solving. Okay, and so problem solving is, like, it's like, put me in the game coach, like I can solve the problem. Like I like, like, a rubrics for cube. Like, I really enjoy de stigmatizing things, and I think that learned early in my career that I don't like long, drawn out scenarios. Like, so I probably couldn't be a writer, or I wouldn't be able to do something that required just a very melancholy experience over long periods of time, because my risk tolerance and my personality profile and my energy level and my passion, I meant to jump in and, you know, it could take 10, 1215, years, but I want to go crazy for that amount of time and Then do something great, and then step back and take three or four years and just kind of like, get my retreat going, and then come back and do something I like, breaking up my life experiences that way. And I feel like, you know, again, because this is my third career pivot. This is what I would this is what I pivoted for. You know, I went from corporate to general construction and from construction to this. This pivot was to give the opportunity that quality of life that included, you know, Darren Hardy says that instead of having a career plan, you need to have a life plan, like, how do you want to live your life like, what do you want retirement to look like? What do you want your days to feel like? And when you think about it from that perspective, you're not saying I'm never going to work, or I'm going to work. You get to a point where it's like a hybrid, where you're saying I'm going to take on really big risk, I'm going to tackle really big problems, I'm going to create really big opportunities for profit and revenue, and then I am going to ascend transition, move on, etcetera. But this is how I like to, kind of like, do business and do life, like in a brokering type of manner. So yeah,
Collette: That's true, and you do, and that's what stands out to me with what you're saying, is that you're not finding your identity. I love that you made the distinction of not going into entrepreneur, the entrepreneur life for freedom, because that is a big part of why many people do it. And you get freedom from some things and then not freedom from other things, right? And you have this, and I'm really, you know, I wouldn't lie to you here, it's, it is unique. It's really unique, Nicole, that your value doesn't seem to be attached to what you're doing. You are I hear it and I see what when you're saying, this is like, this is what I was meant to do. This is in my heart, and this is what I need to bring into this world. And so this is what I will do. And you're doing that to the absolute best of your ability. And so, solving that problem, doing it in the most effective, efficient, amazing way that you possibly can. That is your that is what you're accomplishing, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think it what is so unique about you is that you're not getting your identity from how hard you're working, yeah, yeah. Because I have a lot of friends who have more of the achiever personality, and I love them. I'm drawn to them. I'm just like, tell me more about this. What? What is this? What's happening for you? But I don't hear that in what you're saying either not here.
Nicole: No, I think that I've, I've, there was something I saw on a social media platform recently. It was like when you read your second act in your career is less ego is more soul. And I think that that's why I can be so anchored and authentic, and, you know, have that level of elasticity and grace and tend to be resilient, because, you know, it doesn't stick, you know, like it isn't, it isn't permanent, but it is purposed. Is special. You know, this is it. I'm present in this moment. But, you know, it's not my it's not my identity. I didn't need to. I don't need to be identified by what I do. I am more identified by what I represent and who I am, and I pour that into what I do, which makes it what it becomes, right? And so it's like, that's my relationship with my work. I don't. Find and it's it's odd because sometimes in especially in real estate, you are always around ego driven leaders and everything is about, like, commission sizes and all of these things, which is great, nothing wrong with that, but you have such high highs and stark low lows. And what I've learned when you decide to really build, for me, a high risk life, because I really do enjoy I've noticed this the trend of high risk businesses in all of my career, from commercial real estate to residential, distressed properties to now. And if you're going to, if you're going to do that, well, you have to know how to remain like even, and the way that you remain even is you remain like, you know, super obsessed, but some somehow slightly disconnected, so that you can keep your passion and obsession at that level that's needed on a daily basis without, you know, feeling many of those punches that comes along with pioneering and taking risks. So, yeah, I definitely, um, I don't have that attachment.
Collette: I love how you described it, super obsessed, which is necessary to do that amount of work, right? But slightly disconnected, yeah. And this, this, you mentioned risk as a theme, and I even see disruptor as a theme for you, and it's something you mentioned you enjoy, and it makes a lot of sense, because you can't be a crazy disruptor, because people are just going to say you're crazy, right? You have to be on the same level as everybody else, speaking the same language, with a different perspective, just a little bit different. And that's what I see you doing, and hear you saying, is that you're you are coming into these different work environments where people are career driven, people are ego driven, and you are participating in all the things and slightly disconnected because you're making life choices. You're not just making career choices.
Nicole: Absolutely, yeah, I am thinking about the mom I'll be. I'm thinking about the way I want to show up in my marriage. I'm thinking about, you know, the way that stress impacts my body and how to balance that. I'm thinking about, you know, all of the microaggressions. How much of that do I want to absorb? You know, like all of it has an impact, all of it can be toxic, and in the event that you don't manage the environment, then you don't outlast the environment. And I ain't wanting to outlast the environment. So, yeah, no, I totally think about all of those things. Yeah.
Collette: So how do you again? I going back to this really from a practical perspective. How do you go into your day and not absorb what doesn't belong to you?
Nicole: I've been around too many narcissists their delusion, right? Narcissist can be delusional, then maybe I should choose selectively. So I am you what I have a conviction for, like my day and my life and my decisions, and the outcome of those decisions, like, there's a conviction that drives me that I'm on the right path, that I'm, you know, figuring something big out, that I am is helpful to 1000s of people, millions of people around the world, and it's a problem that's big enough and worthy of being solved. And so when you run with that type of conviction, you get to a space where you don't become, what does it say? Like, don't become caught up in the thick of thin things. And so you identify like what's thin, and sometimes thin, to me, is crazy thick to someone else, right? You know, if we go through a bank outage and we don't have our merchant processing for eight months, then thin, to me, is okay, we're going to have to go short staff. We're going to have to outlast this. We're going to have to slow some things down, but we've been going really fast, so we're just going to, you know, while we do, while we're waiting, we're going to do XYZ so that we can speed back up. But to the other party, they may say, we're not going to work, or we are going to now be delayed in cash flow or and it could be a big thing to them, but in the grand scheme of all of the things, what can you know? What can I really do? What can I allow myself to absorb when I have no control? Over so many of the elements throughout my day to day and so and I also learned, because as a woman, I've dealt with fibroid surgery, I don't have any children yet, I've had a C section. That's a very real moment to have a C section scar with no kids. That is a that is a woman that I that stopped me in my tracks, in the way that I process stress, because there's no way that stress should break down my liver in a way that now is causing these fibroid tumors that now I have to have removed 15 pounds like, that's like two kids, almost by way of a C section, because of my decision making, like you, when you're in recovery, you're just like, reverse engineering your entire thought pattern like, Nope, we're not going to let it get we have to have different guard rails now for our wellness, because the type of, you know, bodily damage that it causes that's life changing. And so these are the things that I think kind of go into my decision making process. It's like, you know, you get to a place where you recognize that there's something more valuable than what the ego reminds you of as it relates to how you engage with your work, and it's the person that's doing the work. Health is truly wealth. And I think that part of the reason why I'm so excited about what wh farms CO does is because it connects us back to sound, mental health, stabilizing of nervous system, you know, really helping with a lot of those holistic benefits so that the body can perform optimally. And I'm a product of our products.
Collette: Mm, hmm, yes, you know you mentioned before, and just hearing your story reminds me of, you know that men and women both deal with crazy things in life, you know, and women have an extra layer of expectation that we won't stop performing. We won't stop doing what has to be done just because we're in pain, just because we're stressed out, just because our mental health is at risk, we just keep going and, yeah, it's not sustainable, is it? It's not Yeah. So your pro, I know I'm going from feedback to product, but I'm really curious about your product for women and kind of is there? I don't know if you have any particular marketing for women, but I'm curious, yeah, who is your product for?
Nicole: So our product line is actually for the entire family, but we are women led company. Our in house scientist, who's NIH trained, is a female and so we know that we are really formulating with women in mind, because women tend to make purchases for the home and the household. And so we have a variety of products our the tincture that I talk about, which you can put it in your coffee, tea, you can bake with it directly, place it under your tongue. I consider that, like an adult multivitamin is the second fastest way to absorb CBD, or the cannabinoids that help to connect and create more of an opto endocannabinoid system, which is what we have on the inside of our body that helps us run optimally. But we also have bath salts and butters that help to really alleviate, alleviate anxiety. We have pain management solutions. We have THC free gummies that help to really, and they're not just for women, but of many, of many mothers actually consider that for their school aged children. Um, it's a 10 milligram gummy dosage. And so they may break it up based on size, but it helps to think about, you know, options to Adderall and other behavioral health management systems that doctors prescribe. And so we're really excited we have pet wellness goods, and so we have products for everyone.
Collette: Yeah, where can people purchase your products?
Nicole: Yeah, so you can actually go to www.whfarms.co/shop, and you can see some of the products that we have in stock. We are traditionally a B to B Company, so we help businesses really expand their product line, but we do make our products available for retail purchases through our website. Just go to whfarms.co/shop, and you can go in and see all about you know what we offer?
Collette: Yeah, thank you. And I, I also just want to give a last moment to, first of all say thank you for being here. You. You are. I'm so glad we got connected, and I know this won't be our last conversation, and it's just your energy, your power, your heart, it all shines through and what you're saying and in what you're doing, and I'm just so appreciative of that and that you share with us really kind of what your process is and how you're getting there. Is there anything that you would share kind of advice for somebody who's struggling to really sit in their power.
Nicole: So the advice that I would share to someone who's struggling to sit in their power is to, first off, forgive yourself and give yourself grace, like really allow yourself to love you the way that you extend grace, love, understanding and compassion to everyone else, pour that into yourself, and you know, maybe create or carve out a season where you are really diving, dig into the diving, deep into the why you're not giving yourself the permission To stand into your standing, your power and identify where that bondage exists, so that you can be honest and face yourself and eradicate it, because you deserve to be fully present, right? Like we all deserve to show up fully. We all should be comfortable being remember how we were when we were, like four or five, just kind of bouncing around. We were in our we were fully in ourselves. We were fully showing up. We were, you know, very excited, and didn't really mind who was around, because we just wanted an opportunity to be I think that that's what we shouldn't lose. We shouldn't allow life to take that burning desire from us to just really connect with that inner child and to to operate in alignment with her spirit or his spirit. And so that's what I would suggest. Just, you know, love yourself, give yourself a big hug, maybe write yourself a few love letters, and reconnect with that bold, bold little girl, a bold little guy and get back to that play. I think there's a lot of healing in play. And we, when we take it too serious, we miss an opportunity to really, like allow healing to flow through us. And so I think that just, you know, having that ability, willingness to give ourselves a little bit of freedom is important.
Collette: I love that, Nicole. I have a six year old son, so the I get a really clear visual of what it would look like to go through the world. The confidence of a six year old be absolutely amazing for all of us.
Nicole: I don't know how everyone else will feel on the outside, right? Yeah, that's right.
Collette: Well, thank you so much, Nicole. I'm so glad to be talking to you, and I know we'll talk again soon. Thanks Absolutely.
Nicole: Thank you. Bye.
