Season 2 – Episode 14. Released on May 12, 2015.
INTRO
Today, I’m talking to Dr. Cary Gannon, the founder of AILA Cosmetics, a luxury collection of nail care products that are free of harmful chemicals. Dr. Cary inspires women to embrace the idea that beauty should be functional and healthy, and that we don’t have to compromise anything to look, feel and be our very best.
BUMPER
I am Tajci.
At 19 I was a superstar and I was lost inside. I left it all behind, switched continents and started all over. Years later I found myself lost again. This time in the American dream.
This is a story about awakening. About living the life you were created for. About going inward and discovering the joyous and purposeful person you and I are both meant to be.
This is “Waking Up In America.”
TAJCI
Dr. Cary, welcome!
DR. CARY
Thank you!
TAJCI
I am so excited to week after week have an opportunity to speak to people like you who have made this shift from a life that looked great on the surface and then made a change in your own life and then showing up in the world and actually changing mainstream culture
DR. CARY
I’m really excited to be here it’s been a huge journey but it’s been worth it and I’m really just grateful to be here. Thank you for having me.
TAJCI
I am big on connectivity. I think, I believe we are all connected. We’re all living on this one planet Earth and it’s all intra-dependable, ever changing, right? And our every action, everything that we create has an effect on us and we like to forget that.
DR. CARY
No I’m glad you said that because I feel like the global currency isn’t really money it’s relationships. And so I feel like that’s what we’re building and it’s far better to cultivate, exactly what you’re talking about.
TAJCI
Yes, and it was so crazy that I’m gonna tell you a quick story how I was introduced to AILA products and you and your story.
For years I was… just like many of my girlfriends, I love to paint my nails right and I’d go to a pedicure, while they’re doing their thing I’m going into my world, read a magazine whatever, Facebook and I never really pay attention what happens when the nail polish comes off. I was have nice shiny nails.
So this winter I was going through my health inventory and I took the nail polish off and I was like, Ah this is terrible. Not only I mean, my nail were chemically destroyed. And it just really made me stop and think.. just be aware of how much on the outside.. like I can you know I have been really good at controlling what I eat what I put into my body but on the outside how much we’re attacked.
And so just so it happened, this is how we’re all connected on also spiritual, metaphysical way, just so it happened that I got a re-tweet from AILA cosmetics and I was drawn to your product and I discovered exactly what I needed at that moment.
DR. CARY
That’s so exciting! It seems like stuff like that happens all the time and that’s how relationships start. And I am so glad that you brought that up, because
historically women have always compromised health for beauty and we’re… it’s no different within the nail industry.
I hear the same scenario playing out in my office every at the end of every summer. Women come in, they’ve removed their nail polish their nails are pitted, yellow, falling apart, crumbling and they all believe they have fungus and they are like what’s happened? what have I done? And then we start to have the conversation about the products that they’re using and we typically discover that’s just an inferior product that’s damaging verses cultivating an environment of health for your nail.
TAJCI
So you are Podiatric surgeon. So you founded AILA cosmetics.
DR. CARY
Yes
TAJCI
So tell me how did that happen?
DR. CARY
I was selling alternative product in my office and I had a patient who was very intentional about what they wanted to put on their body and they wanted a list of ingredients and that was beyond what I had and what else the product could provide, and I call the company to ask those questions and I couldn’t get an answer. And it took me several weeks to finally get an answer and over that time period I was becoming more and more frustrated. And at the end of it I just said you know what? I can do this myself.
I’m going to make my own product. I think I can make it better. I believe that I can be more forthcoming in what’s going into the product and just provide these answers myself. And so that’s what we did.
TAJCI
And you’re talking about not just your regular nail polish you buy at your local drugstore right? You’re already talking about…
DR. CARY
Right! It was supposed to be healthier.
TAJCI
Yes! So, you know, I am from… I grew up in a country obviously where we didn’t have as many options and where maybe people didn’t have this opportunity. I know there’s a lot of places still in the world where we don’t have this opportunity to to do something about it like you did. And that’s why I love America and people like you, who have that spirit to say; No, I’m not gonna take no for an answer I’m not gonna be powerless I’m going to get out and create. But for that you must have had something you know a personal reason and obviously this is another reason why when I you know, looked into a product I also learned about your story.
DR. CARY
I mean… this is very personal for me. All of it. I’m laying everything about my life out there. I mean it was not only a transformative time and the way I do practice, I practice medicine but also my personal life and I’m very, very grateful to be in the position I’m in.
I recognize that my education allows me to make these changes and do something like this and develop a product and it’s an opportunity that a lot of people don’t get and I recognize that I’m very grateful that I have the education so that I can take a departure from what I study so hard to become and cultivate something new.
But you’re right, this is a very personal company for me and I made the change in my professional career at the same time I was making a change in my personal life, which was, I’m an over-functioner. I’m constantly going, constantly moving and and there were so many negative things that were constantly happening. I was in a cycle of negativity with my marriage with multiple things in my personal life… my daughter has sensory processing disorder and just so many things were going on and
I was looking at the cycle that I was trapped in like most people become trapped in a cycle, and I just realized, I am controlling nothing in the cycle I have control over nothing in the cycle and the only thing I can change in this cycle is myself.
And if I don’t personally change within this cycle, then this is how I’m gonna live the rest of my life. And so I basically had to put a stop to everything.
TAJCI
It looks beautiful on the outside. it’s the life we all want, right, that’s out there in the magazines.
DR. CARY
It’s the life we everyone thinks they want.
TAJCI
That’s right. Yes!
DR. CARY
And you know, people… there’s a certain I don’t… there is some status that comes with being a doctor you know people hear that and they think, oh everything must be great and it’s not. I don’t believe that any job is perfect.
Every job comes with disappointments and challenges and I’m not… my expectation is not that being a physician is perfect. But my expectation is that it is somewhat fulfilling.
TAJCI
Right! Did you go into it… Was that your passion growing up?
DR. CARY
I’ve always been passionate about medicine and science, and the human body. Wanted to be a physicians since I was very very young.
Very, very grateful that I was able to become one, you know?
TAJCI
Not everyone gets to do that
DR. CARY
You know, the bad thing about being a doctor isn’t about is the doctor part. It’s that we really don’t get to be doctors very much anymore.
It’s the only profession where you control literally none of the reimbursement parameters. I never know when I’m gonna get paid, what I’m gonna get paid, how I’m gonna get paid. it’s all a game and you lose focus of being able to treat the patient and you’re spending so much time fighting with insurance companies and on the computer it’s just… everything joy… that is joyful about it is removed.
TAJCI
Right, so that passion, what you set to do it’s like you said, it’s distorted really and takes away from who you are meant to be when you show up in the world.
DR. CARY
And there’s a societal shift as well you know now we are the educated well. We can get online we can google anything and to everyone that comes to my office has a preconceived notion about what I’m going to say. Because they’ve read about it and if I don’t say exactly what they’ve read on Google then they’re upset.
TAJCI
Well I usually go and I hope that the doctors gonna tell me that no, everything I read is wrong
DR. CARY
And most of the time it is, most of the time, it’s something that we can fix.
That’s no problem you know… It’s.. there are new challenges to being a physician, just like there are new challenges to any job.
TAJCI
So you have your beautiful family, your beautiful two daughters, your doctor’s career. It’s hard, it’s a struggle. But life is a struggle, right?
It looks good on the outside but, you say it got to the point… tell me about the point that it got: why that really had that waking up force! that propelled into a change.
DR. CARY
Well, I really felt like I had made a lot of good changes in my life as far as my personal relationship and making the change there. What I did not do well was really look at just myself.
You know, I believe that a lot of women and men as well, but obviously I’m speaking more about women. we just never ever ever stop and take care of ourselves. And we live in a society where self-love is hard.
We are own worst enemies, we hurt ourselves every morning we wake up because we don’t think we’re pretty enough; we don’t think we’re working hard enough; we don’t think we’re good enough moms; we aren’t the office enough. We can never do enough.
And so, one day…
TAJCI
And here, I have to stop you, forgive me. Here, you are someone that the rest of us will look at and say: well, she is the perfect you know a career person, a perfect mom, perfect house and you still are saying these words which is really encouraging to me that you’re open about it.
DR. CARY
I heard that all the time I heard all the time, how do you do it all? How do you balance it and meanwhile I’m thinking, I’m really not. I’m so off-balance I’m so out of whack, that I don’t know how no one sees that. And my problem was, I wasn’t communicating that very well. I kept telling people I need help. I need help, and I just, I wasn’t going about the right way. So I had to take a pause and really self-examine.
What happened was that I had gotten a divorce and I was recently dating, which is new and challenging and different and fun.
TAJCI
Yes
DR. CARY
And I broke up with the person I was dating and I called my friend Tracy and I was like, you need to come pick me up
You need to come pick me. I was crying… I need you to come pick me up. And she came and picked me up and instead of taking me to a bar she took me to the juice bar at Whole Foods
TAJCI
Oh beautiful!
DR. CARY
And she’s like we’re starting your transformation today.
And she made me do my first shot of wheatgrass and she’s like, we are turning around, you have to start taking care of yourself because you are drowning.
And I’m like, you’re right. And that’s what happened. I started doing wheatgrass every day. I started, instead of restricting calories and punishing myself for what I wanted to eat, I would just eat things that were nutritious provide nutrients to my body.
TAJCI
So you broke off your usual pattern of life.
DR. CARY
Totally
TAJCI
and then you had the waking up moment when you said okay I’m going to turn inward. You said the only place you can make a change is within, that we can control, right?
DR. CARY
Right
TAJCI
And now, you’re taking steps
DR. CARY
Yes
TAJCI
And your steps… can you help us… what were your steps?
DR. CARY
Well, the first step was recognizing that I actually don’t have control. Control is an illusion.
Everybody thinks they have control over all these little things in their daily routine, and we really don’t.
So the first thing that I had to do was sort of just let it go, and give myself a break
TAJCI
Interesting!
DR. CARY
And just say, you know what? I’m worth taking care of.
TAJCI
Yes!
DR. CARY
I had no self love. I had I’d so much self-loathing that I was hurting myself on a daily basis. Not physically hurting myself but just I just had no nice thoughts about myself and I realized I am a crabby person to be around. I’m no fun!
No wonder my husband and I aren’t getting along. I need to stop and I need to take some time for me and I need to love myself and I need to start with that and recognize I don’t control anything else that’s going on.
And I needed resume control of myself.
TAJCI
Exactly! Yes! That’s the breakthrough! That we don’t control anyone or anything else, but we do control how we
see ourselves, the self-awareness, how much care we put of ourselves because you’re right I mean if I tired, hungry and overworked, I’m crabby too!
DR. CARY
I’m sorry for the way I was behaving when I was like that I mean it’s so bad! Yeah, for sure!
TAJCI
And especially for what you call ‘over-functioners’ not ‘over achievers’, I like that. We over-function and we and for a lot of people and I know for me it’s, I love it!
Did you like that?
DR. CARY
I don’t know any other way.
I don’t know how to just stop and I’ve had to learn how to do that. And one other thing that was really instrumental and facilitating that for me is my daughter Aila.
She has Sensory Processing disorder and I had to stop for her.
She was… that was a transitional moment as well. I cannot be an over functioner around her. I have to stop because it makes her so much worse. And so having a daughter like that actually helped me more than anything because that was part of the recognition process as well like, everyone’s always asking me how I can keep doing it and no one can keep up and it’s because I need to stop acting like such a psycho and moving like at rocket speed all the time.
TAJCI
And that’s that connectivity again you know. We are put in each other’s lives so that we can grow and affect each other. Beautiful!
DR. CARY
Totally believe you. I totally agree with you.
TAJCI
So, you wake up, you change your life and now in that process you decide to also transfer that into creating this product for women, through which you’re also sending out a message stop you don’t have to sacrifice your health, yourself for the life that we…
I mean I love makeup and…
DR. CARY
I know
TAJCI
You know, but for you to provide me now with the product that I can not just feel beautiful I mean I know that a your product doesn’t make us beautiful but it’s a girl thing.
DR. CARY
Right!
TAJCI
But also is healthy and it also with that… choosing that product I am making a statement that I value who I am and I think that’s… I mean I just really… I’m grateful for you to you for sending out that message. I think it’s so needed in the mainstream culture.
DR. CARY
I appreciate that that because I feel like it’s not heard enough and I feel like if someone had told me that more frequently I think things would be a lot different for a lot of women you know, we just never take the time for ourselves and we need to.
You can read some of the stories on my product online. I am… I put all of it. I’m putting my mistakes out there, I’m putting my joyful things out there. I’m naming things after people that I love, some people that don’t like me, I mean, you know so that people see, you know what? Yeah I was successful and, you know, can achieve all of this, but at the end of the day it wasn’t, it’s not fulfilling because I didn’t like myself, I didn’t like who I was.
And I was miserable, and it’s just not worth it.
I would much rather take six months and make very challenging, dramatic changes that are painful than live like this for the rest of my life.
TAJCI
Thank you!
DR. CARY
And ultimately, it’s been very fun.
TAJCI
Yes!
DR. CARY
You know, I get to meet all these new people that I would never had the opportunity meet before and just you know, create, creativity, create something and watch it grow it’s just been it’s a lot better.
TAJCI
And you’re changing the world, I have to say that. It’s you know we’re making… people like you changing the mainstream culture and that’s what we’re doing. I’m so excited because at our point in history it’s not an accident.
DR. CARY
And it’s much needed. yes everybody in the world right now seems to always think about what everybody else is doing and how it affects me. I’m mad all the time and what you just said, this text you just sent me is… you know… I don’t like that everything is about me, me, me and what we’re saying is you can make it about you but in a positive manner. Like instead of using that to hurt other people and always thinking everybody’s against you, in a positive manner cultivate yourself, love yourself and everybody just relax.
TAJCI
Yes. Because…
DR. CARY
Put down the phone!
TAJCI
Because we matter in a way that when we’re self-aware, when we take good self care, when we understand our part in this world in how we’re connected then we embetter our world.
DR. CARY
Yes, and I’m a better Mom because of it, and a better person
TAJCI
And a better doctor.
DR. CARY
I think that’s probably true, you know I think my bedside manners probably dramatically improved now that I’m not angry all the time.
TAJCI
So how can we get your nail products?
DR. CARY
I mean obviously the easiest way is online. loveAila.com. It’s A.I.L.A. dot com, but I’m you know they’re, we’re sold in Canada we’re sold in multiple states here in the United States apparently, we have a big following in the Middle East which we’ve been very blessed with. And we are working on some other international deals but you know right now we’re just sort of organically growing and the easiest way to find us is online at LoveAILA.com.
TAJCI
And you just started and you already got an award.
DR. CARY
We did! We were very blessed to get the LNE Spa award which I was really surprised about. It was a nice surprise.
TAJCI
And that’s a French company that picks best products.
DR. CARY
Yes!
TAJCI
Wonderful What I love is that each color has a story. Tell me about that.
DR. CARY
Well that’s the best part is naming the colors and it’s usually after, like I said, something really dumb that I’ve done or something fantastic or just a memory that I have. Some of the colors…My 2 Jeffs: my ex husband’s name is Jeff and my boyfriend’s name is Jeff, so that’s, you know probably makes…
TAJCI
That’s courageous.
DR. CARY
I’m living out loud.
You know, you look at things like Skeeflink, that’s what my grandfather used to call me when I was a kid. That was my nickname and you know, all of these colors have a personal story and the name is very personal and they are just fun.
TAJCI
Tell me how do your beautiful daughters relate to this change in your life this you now?
DR. CARY
They will tell you that they can tell how much happier I am and how much how balance things are now that comes at a price right? I mean, we have to, we have a different schedule now, and a different arrangement with their dad and I’m very fortunate, and very blessed that their dad I have a great relationship we’re still great friends. He comes over all the time. We work together and that helps the girls even more, to see that you can have conflict and resolve that conflict and live within that and,
TAJCI
Rather than stay in the miserable place.
DR. CARY
It takes too much energy to hate someone. It’s so much easier to just say, hey you know what? We’re still good friends and not and it’s been phenomenal so you know, the sacrifice I think was worth it. Even for them and they are enjoying it, you know they are true employees. They keep their AILA folder, they help me name the colors, they help write color stories, they fold boxes, you know, they’re really… McKenna writes blog posts.
TAJCI
And your company is named by, after your daughter.
DR. CARY
It’s named after my younger daughter Aila. Aila is Gaelic for strong and we just thought it was a cool name, you know, and it reads beautiful. And there is another cosmetics company similar to McKenna, so we couldn’t use that one. But so it’s named for Aila.
TAJCI
And then you have a color that’s connected..
DR. CARY
Sure, each girl has the color. McKenna has one named McKenna Aila has one called five senses.
Five senses is a very important color to us, not only because it’s one of my favorite ones, it’s beautiful but the proceeds from that color go towards Sensory Processing Foundation which is something that Aila really struggles with. And so we’re trying to give back to that foundation ’cause it’s not a very well-known thing that affects children, so…
TAJCI
I have to ask you about music. For me, music, all my life has been the connection talking about connection… Connection with
divine, something that’s bigger than us.
And I know that in your story there was so much noise. Was there… How does… Do you have a… Oh I heard you play violin.
DR. CARY
I do. Yes.
TAJCI
How cool is that! Did music help you in any way, or?
DR. CARY
You know, in this case… in the past I’ve always turn to music but this time I did it differently. You know, this time I felt like I was so overstimulated all the time by my iPad, my iPhone, my computer, the TV, the radio in my car… I just, one day turned it all off and learned how to be quiet again. And learn how to go outside and listen to the divine music that’s outside.
And just even the sounds in my own head… and I had I realized that I hadn’t been quiet in a long time. And I think that we actually need that quiet.
TAJCI
How beautiful! How beautiful! Thank you so much for having the courage to really look at your life and say, even though it was beautiful on the outside, it’s what most people wish for. But you had the courage to be true to yourself, wake up and then take that waking up, take that shift into the world and make this not just make the product but also give back to the community and help women to feel great about themselves and to turn it… turn the beauty inward and say, like what we chatted beforehand about to even show up in the morning without makeup and look in the mirror and recognize and embrace that beauty and then you can have fun with colors.
DR. CARY
Right! (laughs)
TAJCI
Thank you so much!
DR. CARY
You are welcome, thank you so much. It was an honor to be here. I appreciate that.
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