Few things feel as exciting as creating a business around the things we use in our own lives, and sometimes, our coping mechanisms can turn into professional ventures.   How can we turn something like meditation for stress alleviation into a business, so we can use what’s helped us to assist countless others? How can we fall in love with our daily practices enough to promote them?   In this episode, CEO of Expectful, Nathalie Walton shares how she became the co-founder of a business that helped her through her difficult pregnancy.  3 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode   How to develop a regular meditation practice Most of us have heard about the benefits of meditation, but how can we find the time (and the willpower!) to get started?    How stress impacts fertility What can we do to reduce the effects stress has on our reproductive systems?    How to get started with hypnobirthing What is hypnobirthing, and how can we more women start using it in their own birth plans?   Guest Bio-  Nathalie Walton is the CEO and Co-Founder of Expectful, the number one go-to wellness app for women and growing families. While she was working at some of the world’s most admired companies, Airbnb, Google, and eBay, she was always on a constant search for deeper fulfillment. This search launched a self-discovery process that resulted in the cultivation of a wellness & mindfulness practice; Nathalie began meditating and practicing yoga daily, became mindful of her eating, and read incessantly about finding purpose. Not long after, she became pregnant and discovered that she was at high risk for placental challenges in the second half of her pregnancy. She went from an uneventful pregnancy to a high-stress pregnancy where every day she worried about her baby’s survival. During her third trimester, she saw an ad for Expectful, which was not only life-changing but the next step into her future. Within a week of diving into the meditations and deeping her hypnobirthing practice, her condition managed to stabilize and she made it to term.    After becoming familiar with Expectful, she soon met Mark Krassner, who was looking for the right person to succeed him as CEO/Co-Founder. As a user, a new mother, a longstanding wellness enthusiast, and the person who built the roadmap for scaling Google’s Local Commerce offerings, this was the perfect opportunity for Nathalie.    Nathalie knew that she was passionate about the prospect of making Expectful available to every pregnant woman, especially those whose doctors hadn’t offered them the support and resources they could be utilizing.    Since becoming CEO, Nathalie has raised over $4M for Expectful. As Expectful’s CEO, as of September 2020, Nathalie’s mission is to solve the wellbeing crisis facing the 21 million women in the U.S. who are new parents, pregnant, or aspiring to conceive.   To find out more, go to:  https://expectful.com/  https://www.instagram.com/expectful/  https://www.instagram.com/nathaliewalton/