[00:00:00] Elizabeth: Hi everyone. I'm Elizabeth Stein, founder and CEO of purely Elizabeth, and this is Live purely with Elizabeth, featuring candid conversations about how to thrive on your wellness journey. This week I had so much fun sitting down with Jennifer Fisher, known as the Queen of Hoops by the New York Times. Her unapologetic approach to the art of jewelry has garnered the attention of celebrities such as Michelle Obama, Hailey Bieber, and Jennifer Lopez, as well as jewelry lovers worldwide. Jennifer Fisher is renowned for crafting personalized heirlooms that blend modern minimalism with meticulous attention to detail, encouraging self-expression and exemplifying.

[00:00:47] Timeless luxury with a distinct singular attitude. Her jewelry is available globally in retailers like Sack's, my Isha Netta Porter, as well as her flagship stores in LA and New York. In this episode, we talk about Jennifer's journey from being a stylist in la. To creating her own jewelry line after her infertility struggles led to the birth of her first son.

[00:01:13] Through Jennifer's own health struggles with Hashimoto's, she shares her approach to fitness and wellness that have had a huge impact on her healing. We talk about the lessons learned over her almost 20 year journey, building her brand, including the role of visualization, positive mindset. Pushing through fear and resilience in achieving business and personal goals.

[00:01:36] Lastly, we discussed her recent launch of salts and her upcoming cookbook, her skincare routine, favorite foods, where she draws inspiration for her jewelry, and so much more. Hope you enjoy the show.

[00:01:54] Jennifer, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited for this conversation and it was so nice to briefly meet you at Fancy Food this summer, so I'm so glad that this all came together,

[00:02:07] Jennifer: Thank you for having me. That was so exciting to meet you. Like you guys were such a, like a legit, big company in a food fair like that, that you guys like really know what you're doing.

[00:02:13] It was our first time doing it, so we were like the little beginners. It was really fun. It was cool to see your booth in action too. Thanks.

[00:02:20] Elizabeth: How did the show end up going for you?

[00:02:21] Jennifer: It was great. It's such a great place to meet everybody and see people that you either have met on or your friends on Instagram and they come by or, and it was also just really fun walking and seeing everybody that, yeah, I'm really lucky, like a lot of people sell me products and I, there's a lot of clean things that I really liked there.

[00:02:37] And it was just nice to meet the, put a face to the product and to see like with you, like you and I have been like Instagram friends for a long time and we hadn't met until the. Fancy food show. So it's like those kind of things make it really worthwhile.

[00:02:48] Elizabeth: Totally. You next, you have to go to Expo West in March.

[00:02:51] Jennifer: I know everyone keeps saying that and I'm working on my cookbook right now. Congrats. Thank you. I had no idea how much work that was going to be. So we're doing that, but I would like to go to Expo West. You can teach.

[00:03:04] Elizabeth: Totally. We'll get into all of this, certainly salt being at a food show and cookbook.

[00:03:10] Were not how you started your brand. So let's get back to the beginning of story. And please don't leave out Aaron Spelling and Matt LeBlanc.

[00:03:21] Jennifer: Oh my god, sure. No problem. So I grew up in Santa Barbara, California in Montecito, which is a smaller sort of beach town, which is just south of Santa Barbara.

[00:03:30] My grandfather was a polo player there. We were like third generation Montecito. Now it's Spelling and Oprah. And we were there when it was like a cool little beach town before that. And the Santa Barbara polo fields are well known up there and my grandfather. That's so cool. He was a silversmith in his spare time, but he also taught Sylvester Stallone and Tommy Lee Jones and all those like old school, really cool Hollywood who wanted new polo players.

[00:03:51] He would give them lessons and he was like the old cool cowboy work cowboy hat every day. And he would come over 'cause they were condos and he would come over to our house. At night and in the morning sometimes, and he'd work on his jewelry. My father always made sure that he had a work bench, that he could work and do his stuff for his spare time.

[00:04:07] 'cause it was his hobby. And I always, sometimes just literally sit in the garage on the washer and dryer or like on a bench or whatever and watch him do it and. It's funny 'cause when I was growing up, I never really wore a lot of jewelry, but what I wore, it's so funny now that my daughter is 17 years old.

[00:04:21] She's been going through all of my, my jewelry that I had saved, fashion, jewelry, and fine jewelry and it was really a lot of hoops. So I always, I guess it all goes back to that of what I was attracted to when I was younger,

[00:04:31] Elizabeth: Your daughter must have the best time in your closet.

[00:04:35] Jennifer: She's actually very specific and love. She's like how I was when I was younger. I wasn't like the, the cheerleader at my high school. I was funky and I loved to shop vintage and I loved to take things that I didn't really think were exactly how I wanted to wear them, and I would add things to them where I would change them.

[00:04:50] So I always had a very specific style growing up. So it's interesting how it's transitioned into this. I ended up going to us. C and I studied business marketing at Marshall there with a marketing, major and a fine art minor. And I always loved clothes so much. So like when I was younger, I begged my mom to, to get me a Vogue Magazine, a subscription, and I like literally wallpapered my entire wall with all of the covers and stories.

[00:05:14] And so just fashion was always something that I was really attracted to.

[00:05:17] Elizabeth: I love that. I had an absolute wall in my house growing up.

[00:05:21] Jennifer: You know what? It's, I wish that they still did that. I, it was, yeah. They were so

[00:05:25] Elizabeth: cool.

[00:05:26] Jennifer: That branding was so incredible.

[00:05:27] Brilliant. I had some of those, I had some of those te like the Warhol, like it was so beau. It was really cool. Some of those things which should bring back actually. So anyways, when I graduated, I thought that I wanted to work on, I wanted to be like the publisher of Vogue, and that's absolutely not what I wanted to do.

[00:05:41] When I got my first internship, I would watch the racks of clothes going by and I was stuck on the finance and marketing side and I was like, this is not, I don't wanna do ad sales, I wanna do that. So I had girlfriends that I had grown up with that happened to work for some directors in Los Angeles at a very cool film company called Propaganda Films.

[00:05:58] And one of the directors happened to be looking for a wardrobe stylist. And I literally like with no experience, I'd done a little bit of celebrity assisting styling, but like barely any. And I got this like commercial job. Wow. I'll never forget it. It was a past PEI commercial. I had a sheriff, a prom queen, and like characters and I figured out how to do it and it was amazing.

[00:06:20] And I ended up doing that for 10 years in Los Angeles without. I'm having an agent. But in between that, at the end of my career, I worked at NBC for Aaron Spelling on one of his daytime shows called Sunset Beach. And I was the assistant to the costume, designer on that show. And Matt LeBlanc also shot friends on the same lot and we'd see each other in the commissary all the time.

[00:06:41] And one day he followed me off a lot and asked me out and we started dating. So that's my Matt LeBlanc. That's how I met Matt. Amazing. That was my boyfriend until I met my, now husband of 23 years. Kevin. So it was all meant to be, obviously all meant to be. And I moved to New York. We were not even engaged yet.

[00:06:58] It was in like late 1999? And I got diagnosed with right before my birthday, something called a desmoid tumor, which is a soft tissue sarcoma on my left chest wall. It's from scar tissue that it's basically like a keloid scar that turns into a tumor. So

[00:07:13] Elizabeth: how did you even find that? How was that diagnosed?

[00:07:16] Jennifer: I was working out and I was wearing a lot of racer back tops. It was cutting into my armpits and I had just had breast implants done after bat, and I broke up in 19 98, and my doctor thought it was just some sort of, irritation. When in fact it was a piece of scar tissue, probably from the surgery.
[00:07:32] I'm not saying that's what caused it, but there's no way to know where it came from. Sure. You can get them from when we get them in the uterus from stress, from pregnancy and things like that, they, there's no way to know exactly where it came from anyways, so I went through 12 rounds of high dose methotrexate, chemotherapy for that at Cedar-Sinai in Los Angeles and here in New York.

[00:07:49] And that's when Kevin proposed to me. And then we got married right after, not right after, six months after three days before nine 11. Wow. We've been through a lot. Yeah, I know. And then when we wanted to have kids, my oncologist said, absolutely not. Your tumor grows from estrogen. You need to get a surrogate or you need to adopt.

[00:08:08] And so we went through, it was at the time, illegal in the state of New York to have a surrogate carry a child for you. So we both, being from California, Kevin grew up in Brentwood in Los Angeles, we decided to do it in California and it takes, it took about a year to find the surrogate. And there's a lot of legal that you have to do.

[00:08:25] I know I, some people know about that and some don't, but it's a process. And so we finally found an amazing surrogate and she was pregnant twice. First time she miscarried at 12 weeks and second time she miscarried at a 16 weeks, which was a little strange. And we had done so many different tests on the embryos, we couldn't figure out what was going on.

[00:08:41] So we thought maybe the chemotherapy had affected my eggs in some way. We gave up. She actually quit and I ended up going through IVF here in New York once on my own trying to do it. 'cause I was I'm just gonna try it. And it was unsuccessful and then I got pregnant and that was my son Shane.

[00:08:58] Wow. Healthy pregnancy. Two, my tumor didn't grow, it actually shrunk. And it was completely fine. And that's how my jewelry brand started. So when he was born, people were giving me gifts to represent him, and none of them really suited my personal style. I just, I wanted something heavier. I wanted a longer chain.

[00:09:15] I just wanted something that was different than a lot of the very dainty, pretty jewelry that's out there. I just didn't seem my mate. I wanted to be able to make it my own. And I, that's how I've always been in my own life. I've always tried to figure out like what I can do to make it a little bit different or suit my personal taste.

[00:09:30] So I made a very simple dog tag and I wore it on a long gold chain like this. It was maybe a little bit longer than this, actually. It was two inches longer than this, and I would wear it on set. It said Shane and I was his wardrobe stylist still. After giving birth to him, I went back to work and. I would be on set and literally like the grips and the gaffers and all the guys on set, it was an instant conversation piece.

[00:09:49] People always wanted to know what it said and people were drawn to it. It was really interesting. It was just like instantly something people wanted to talk about and people then, would express their interest in buying one in a different shape or a different, color or, so I started making them literally for like people on set.

[00:10:05] One day we lived in Soho at the time, and one day Kevin came home, he was working on Wall Street at the time, and I had like orders all over my bed in the bedroom and he was like, Jen, this is a business. You need to start a website. So I started selling. I started a website, pretty simple. I was selling direct to consumer, customizable fine jewelry, and that's really how it started.

[00:10:23] Wow. Yes.

[00:10:25] Elizabeth: Yeah, it's crazy. What a crazy story. So just backing up, when you got pregnant, after all of that time, like what, where were you? What was that moment for you? I. When you found out,

[00:10:37] Jennifer: you know what's funny is I don't remember that. No. No one's ever asked me that and I don't remember when I found out I was pregnant with Shane.

[00:10:42] As much as I remember when I got, when I was pregnant with Drew, my daughter, so after Shane, I went on to have my daughter Drew naturally also, but I'll never forget I had with her, I had, you go to the doctor to get your checkup, weeks, six, it was like my six month checkup or something, and I had Shane strapped me in a sling and I went to go pee in a cup in the bathroom trying to hold the baby.

[00:11:01] And I'll never forget, I came outta the bathroom and my doctor, or the nurse was like, you're very pregnant. And I had no idea. Oh my God. Yeah. So that moment I remember much more vividly because I had Shane literally strapped to me when I found out. It's funny, I wasn't I never was pregnant before, so I never knew if I would have trouble getting pregnant or not.

[00:11:21] I just had never tried and I just had never big, I had never been pregnant. I have Hashimoto's and I had And did you have

[00:11:28] Elizabeth: Hashimoto's back then or,
[00:11:30] Jennifer: yeah, so I was, yes, I've had it, I've had it since high school. It's probably a diagnosed since high school. I've had it. I've had it diagnosed since college, but I haven't, they couldn't figure out what it was. I had skin problems. I had, sweaty palms, had all kinds of different things going on, and they would put me on birth control and that's why it's it kills me so much of the things that we went through from doctors that didn't really know what they were doing when we were younger.

[00:11:51] Know, just throwing like hormone therapy at you and things like that. 'cause they didn't know what to do because I had bad skin. And I like
[00:11:58] Elizabeth: that. Many years ago, they certainly didn't know how to treat something like the root cause. And you could help it with diet and

[00:12:05] Jennifer: no, it's called, here's medicine.
[00:12:06] Welcome to the United States. Here's some more medicine. It's a script, right?

[00:12:10] So I was thinking all kinds of crap. So I finally found a really great, I went through different endocrinologists, but I found a great endocrinologist here in New York when I moved here. Later in life who finally got me off of gluten.

[00:12:20] And it's crazy to me that none of these doctors that I had gone to previously had ever given me that sound advice of someone with Hashimoto's should not be consuming any sort of gluten. And should, regulating their sugar, and that that's what's so interesting is that my, my, my path to where I am now in terms of how I live and how I eat.

[00:12:38] I had to figure it out on my own. My doctor helped me with those suggestions early on, but I spent so much money going to all of these doctors, buying all these vitamins, all these shakes, all this different stuff that's just filled with garbage too, to try to feel better. I. When I really, all I really needed to be doing was simplifying what I was putting into my body and healing my gut and making sure that I'm, eating the right foods for my body and you know what I have.

[00:13:04] And it was so simple. It's crazy. And it wasn't until I read Will's book Keto Arian, that really was like a light bulb in my head that went off of just eliminating certain things and just reading things carefully. That's what my whole cookbook is about. It's about. It's gonna be about, is like all of these things that I, of just simplifying everything.

[00:13:22] I put your granola in it. Oh, thanks. Everything you put in your, that you have in your house you're prepared and you have like your arsenal at home of everything that you need. So no matter what, your mood, your schedule, whatever it is, you have, my office, I keep things too to make sure that I'm eating right at work when I don't have enough time or if I forget my lunch.

[00:13:41] Those kinds of things. Just trying to prepare. Prepare yourself. It doesn't take that much time. Once you learn what works for you and your system and the things that you prefer, taste wise, it's. Really, it's such a simple thing. You just know exactly what to go to and people are so scary, I think, to make that shift.

[00:13:56] Yeah. They think it's so much work and they think it's restrictive when really it's the furthest thing from that.

[00:14:00] Elizabeth: Totally. It's amazing, like I love how you're saying it, simplifying because it seems so complicated, right? It's like there's so much conversation about eat this, have that. So much out there.

[00:14:13] But at the end of the day, it really is just simplifying and finding the things that work for you. And to your point, like not being restrictive. It's actually you're full of all of these good things that make you feel good. And when you can find the things that make you feel good, like that's.

[00:14:31] That's what's most important.

[00:14:33] Jennifer: Yeah. I think it's a huge disservice here in the United States that we don't, doctors don't have, physicians don't have more nutritional training in their residencies and, there it, it's just. It could be so much easier to guide people and care for your patients.

[00:14:46] And, even just going to a regular, GP making simple recommendations for people. It's not about diet, and of course it's about being active and living a lifestyle where you're moving and, but I also used to I would kill myself with cardio and I would be like on my, my bike and I was running and I was doing so many things that were, I don't think really.

[00:15:05] It's great for my body. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, you should mix all of it and have a healthy balance of all of that in your exercise. But I was, now I do Pilates, I move slower, but I move more often. It's those things that I just think it's not talked about enough. And I think that's a new thing.

[00:15:20] It's starting to happen. I think more people are starting to talk about, breathing and moving slower and, I'm 53 years old. I can't be jumping up and down. I'll hurt myself. I can't be running, I wish I was I, I try the trampoline. It makes me pee, it's.

[00:15:34] It's I, we all have to do what works for us, but for me, moving a little bit slower in a more meaningful manner has been helpful for my body. Yeah. And my

[00:15:44] Elizabeth: mind. Totally. Yeah. How long have you been on this sort of phase of your fitness journeys side of it and realizing, listening to your body and not go in a SoulCycle every day?

[00:15:56] Jennifer: I love SoulCycle. I know, me too. Full class every day, every t, every Tuesday and Thursday, and she's still my friend and I love that, but I don't do it anymore. I should do it a little bit more. I do need to do a little bit more cardio, to be honest. But No, you know what, to be honest, I, during Covid I, my Peloton bike to me was my saving grace.

[00:16:14] Me too, because I couldn't go anywhere. So I literally, and I, but I have a little bit of PTSD from it, to be honest. I don't gravitate towards it anymore because it reminds me of those times when we were like, shut in and it was a very different time. And I actually, it's so funny, I had a conversation with my husband Kevin this morning.

[00:16:29] 'cause we were talking about, losing muscle mass as we get older and having to lift more weights and heavy, no, not necessarily heavier weights, but more repetitions and making sure that we're being consistent. All of that. And I said should I get back on the Peloton? Maybe I should, but I actually considered it this morning, so I might do it later and just 'cause I haven't done it in so long, but I made this shift to your answer, your question.

[00:16:50] I'm sorry. When we came out of Covid I opened my Beverly Hills store and it was when we were still having to, that's when I read Keto Arian and we're still having to quarantine for 10 days back and forth each time. Oh my God. It was so crazy. So I would go and I'd have to literally quarantine and stay away from my employees in Los Angeles, and that's when I started doing virtual Pilates.

[00:17:12] Amy Nelms is my Pilates instructor. She's Flat Iron Pilates. She's, I can't. Like sing from the rooftops enough about her. She's incredible. But she's taught me how to move my body and my, it's literally changed the, my physique and the way that I look. It's incredible what Pilates can do because it elongates everything and it, it makes you a little more sinu.

[00:17:31] And I was bulkier before. I was tendency to bulk up if I do too much leg work, it's just always how my body's built and I get bigger. So it's just, I think it's just being more mindful and making sure that we're moving so we feel good and breathing. That's another thing. I sit at my desk sometimes and there's so much stress during the day and I'm like, can remember to breathe.

[00:17:50] I was gonna say, do you have a breathing

[00:17:52] Elizabeth: ritual or what do you do around that? Oh my.
[00:17:55] Jennifer: Have you heard of that? I actually did it this morning for the first time. Have you heard of chopping wood? No. What? Oh my gosh. Okay. I saw this on, I saw this on Instagram. I'm sorry, I'm not giving credit to who, who put it out there, but it was it was about breath work and it was literally like.

[00:18:09] Putting your arms, it was standing with your legs shoulder width apart, and taking your arms and going through like you're chopping wood, like you're holding an axe. Yeah. And breathing out and letting out like any kind of sounds or emotion or whatever you need to. And you move obviously as fast as you can or as slow as you want.

[00:18:25] But I did it this morning when I woke up 'cause I didn't sleep well last night for some reason. I woke up really not rested. And so I got up and I did it before I started doing, my work on my phone and it made me feel better.

[00:18:37] Elizabeth: Oh,
[00:18:38] Jennifer: all right. It was I was sort, this is funky.

[00:18:39] I'm gonna try it. Yeah. I'll sit there. I used to do a lot of meditation and I stopped doing that 'cause it's really hard for me to sit still. Yeah. And I don't find it relaxing because I'm, it's hard. I have, I obviously have attention things, I'm undiagnosed, but I feel like I have that. And it's hard for me to sit still for 20 minutes and I don't find it relaxing.

[00:19:01] I find it really it's hard for me. So I've moved away from that and I've just taken I do short breaths and things that I, or deeper breaths for shorter periods of time and just try to do some like mindful thinking of like positive manifestation, like that kind of stuff.
[00:19:14] Elizabeth: I love that I, in that same camp, I cannot sit still, but it's all about like positive mindset, bringing in what you want and making it happen. Yeah.
[00:19:24] Jennifer: I think that, do you know Gabby Bernstein? Yeah. Okay, so Gabby Bernstein is a good friend of mine and so I was on the phone with her yesterday and we were talking about visualization.
[00:19:34] And how I think, I'm saying I can see it. I, for me, what I'm doing right now, my path, I can clearly see my path and feel it. And feel it. Yeah, I think you have to live really intentionally in your thoughts and your work. And I think, visualization of manifestation is very powerful.
[00:19:53] And I see clearly my direction and where I'm trying to go daily and not live in fear of it or doubt because of ego or, ego or fear. That's something that, plagued so many people and me too, but as I've gotten older, I've really realized that you. First of all, people are so self-consumed.
[00:20:13] They're not paying attention to what you're doing really. And really, you just need to be about what's best for you, your business, your family, and to not be fearful to make change and to not be fearful to, to move in the direction that you want, that you see yourself. Because the only way that's going to happen is by you doing that and making a conscious choice to make that change and to move in that direction.
[00:20:32] No one's gonna do that for you. A hundred percent.
[00:20:35] Elizabeth: I think that for me, as I look back over the last 15 years of having the business, so much of it has been, and I don't know that I can remember like pre having business, what my life was like as so much, but so much of it has been like just feeling the fear and.
[00:20:53] Living through it and pushing through that and like constantly trying to push myself outta my comfort zone and do those hard things. And because you have, once you do that and it works that it keeps wanting you, making, you wanna continue doing that and down that path. So I'm curious for you, as you look back to, and you've now been in business for, what, almost 19 years?
[00:21:16] Yeah. Yeah. So almost 20 years now. At the beginning, your husband comes in, he says start this business, and you just sounds like you probably just started it like you didn't have the fear and you just went for it. How has fear played throughout the last 20 years and what tips do you have for people to work through it?
[00:21:36] Because it's certainly the biggest thing that holds us back.
[00:21:39] Jennifer: I think fear looks different at different points of your career and different path, different points as you evolve. I think it goes through fear of, there's comparison there's ego, and, but I think as you start to grow your business and you really see, if you're trusting what you're doing and you're seeing the business grow.
[00:21:59] I always say it's like a horse with blinders on. I used to look around a lot more, and I don't look around anymore. I just focus on what I'm doing and where I see the business going. But the fear thing, there's constant problems and there's constant things that happen that are negative and that every day are changing every day.
[00:22:17] And you wake up every day scared. You wake up? I do wake up every day like, okay, this is today. This is what's bothering me. And I can't help it. I just, I do but I know that everything is going to be okay because I've gone, listen, I haven't gone through everything, but I've gone through a lot and over the last two years, I've gone through probably the most challenging time of my entire life of business, everything, family, my father died so much happened to me.
[00:22:41] That completely changed me as a person. But I don't, I truly believe I would not be in the position I am today going where I'm going. Had I not gone through all of those horrible, terrible things, and I'm not referring to my father's death. There's business things too, so it's. I, it's almost like they always say, God gives you what you can handle.
[00:23:00] And I think that, I think it's really true that you know that it's the evolution of all of these things. It's okay, you, they, you've gone through that, so then it's time for you to go through this, and then you think you're done and then something else happens that challenges you and tests you, and you have to just really know that.
[00:23:16] There's this amazing, there's, have you ever seen that? There's a really great meme that goes around on Instagram and it says, and it's, there's a huge circle and it's your problems today. And then it's, there's this little tiny circle and it's your problem. The same problem next year. Yeah.
[00:23:29] And it's so conflated in the present time, that you have to just move through it and learn from it and try, if there's a mistake that was made, you try to not make that mistake again. If there's a learning for it and you try to learn from that and evolve from that it's life, it's business and it's life, and you just have to keep moving.
[00:23:48] And I think that's what's so hard for so many people is that they'll be hit with these challenges is, and they don't think that they can overcome them, and they don't think that they can move forward from it. And like you don't wanna be stagnant like you want. You have to move through all of these things in order to become what you're going to be next.
[00:24:03] And what you were last year is not what you are now and where you're gonna be next year is not where you are now. So you're constantly moving and you have to also, like the universe is already taking you. Already knows where you're going. And that was another thing that Gabby taught me when I was moving through some difficult things over the last two years, is that, that just you have to let go and stop trying to control everything because which is hard.
[00:24:25] It's all going, it's all flowing and happening. So you just have to trust that you know the greater good for all and that you're moving, in the right direction, whatever that direction is for a reason. It's moving you. If something happens, you think you had to have or had to happen, and it doesn't happen, you can't be crushed by it.
[00:24:45] You have to realize that there's a reason that happened because you're meant for something else. Totally. And yeah, I think some people also don't realize that, and that's learnings that I've recently gotten very used to.
[00:24:57] Elizabeth: Yeah. I feel like that's my total philosophy. And I also feel like it goes hand in hand, but at least for me feeling like.
[00:25:04] I'm a very optimistic person and so it's not easy, but certainly easier to be like okay, this bad thing happened, but I know it happened 'cause there's a silver lining and like I turned it into this whole thing. Which for some people who aren't as optimistic, that's definitely like annoying 'cause they can't, they're so far from.
[00:25:22] Understanding that. So do you have any tips or like how do you have those conversations with people who maybe aren't so optimistic and how to like work through that? Because I think it comes more naturally for some than others.
[00:25:39] Jennifer: Very much and I think some people, some people have different.
[00:25:42] Trauma or fears that I might not have. So I can't always be giving the right advice to people 'cause I don't know what they've been through maybe in their younger years or in their business. We've all have, we all have different challenges that we're facing based off of our own past. So that's also difficult to give advice because it's easy for me to say.
[00:26:00] For me, it comes naturally, and for you, it comes naturally and for somebody. And so for those, when I, when people reach out to me on like Instagram or, and DM me, how do you move forward through this? It's really hard for me. I can't mentally get out of my own way. Yeah. I just, you have to just not be fearful because I, and that's the same advice that I give everybody, is that people, it's a lot of it is ego.
[00:26:17] And you have to be okay to fail. I fail all the time. Yeah. Things are not perfect. And also you, those failures are learnings. I really truly believe that you have to go through failures in order to move forward. And I think some people just get stuck and you just have to just remember that it's your own path and your own journey.
[00:26:37] And like I said, not many people are really paying attention to what you're doing anyways. They're focused on themselves, so just do your thing.
[00:26:44] Elizabeth: Do you think that this mentality for you has evolved over the last 19 years, or were you always this way? At the beginning of the business,
[00:26:52] Jennifer: I've always been this way.
[00:26:54] I was not as comfortable showing my true self early on in business because I thought that I needed to be something else. Early on in my. Career in like 2012. I did the Vogue CFJ fashion fund and we were part of that. It's like basically like Rushing Vogue magazine. And I thought the business needed to be this way and I just, I wasn't listening or being my true self.
[00:27:16] I was fearful. And I, it's only really until I recently, and I think maybe that comes with age and experience, I don't really give a shit anymore. Like now I just this is me. I have one, one chance on this planet is me and I'm going to be my true self. And if you don't like it, that's totally cool.
[00:27:33] There's a million other people. I'm not expecting everyone to love my method or who I am, or you know how I think and talk or express myself or my jewelry, and that's okay. You have to be okay with that, that there's plenty of people in this world and there are people that are gonna be your cheerleaders and there's people that are not, and that's okay.
[00:27:50] I think people live, a lot of people live like, oh, everyone has to, love me or love what I do, and no they don't that. But that comes with time, I think too and experience. And I, I. I just, I believe in my product and what I do and I, I truly, my brand and who I am is really an extension of myself.
[00:28:07] Like doing this home stuff for CB two that I did, that was one of the most fun projects of my life. To get out of jewelry, to go and do something really fun for home that was accessible for people and my salt and the food, all of those things. It's a little weird, it doesn't make sense to some people and people are like, you're weird.
[00:28:23] I'm like, I know. Isn't it great? Weird is cool. So I think it's just, I, I like, it's, like I said, I think it's an evolution and we all learn as we get older and I try to teach my kids, it's really important. I wish I had knew earlier to really just be myself and whatever that is, is perfect.
[00:28:40] Yeah. Whatever that is great.
[00:28:42] Elizabeth: Yeah. It sounds like you've definitely evolved a lot personally and professionally. The business has certainly evolved as you were just saying. So take us through a little bit about. The, we talked obviously about the start of the jewelry, but when did hoops come in and then we'll get into Salt CP two and all of that stuff.
[00:29:02] Jennifer: So the hoops came from, I've always loved hoop earings. I've always had, and in my office I had like my vision board, I have them here too, I shouldn't show you, but, and I always had a photo of Sade and there was this photo of Awa boa, this beautiful British model. And it was a cover of Italian Vogue in her ear.
[00:29:20] Had these small little huggies going up it with all different kinds of hoops. And I just always. Was like hoop is like, the hoop is a perfect earring. They look good on everybody. There's a million different sizes. It's like denim. Everyone needs a bunch of pairs. Yeah. And I was just like, I'm gonna make hoops.
[00:29:35] And I started off really doing charm jewelry for, it was a good part, good portion of the business. And then I started making fashion jewelry because I wanted to be on the cover of magazines. And all of my friends that worked at magazines were like, Jen Charm jewelry isn't really magazine cover jewelry.
[00:29:49] Make some other stuff. And so I started making big gold cuffs. It was costing me like tens of thousands of dollars to make these big bracelets. And, but I was getting editorial placement for it, so I was like, this is working. I gotta figure this out. So we started making it in brass and that's when Barneys, New York came to me and they, I know.
[00:30:07] Loved Barney's. Daniella Vital and Mark Lee, they were so amazing and supportive to me when I started off and they gave me this big section in co-op and here on Madison Avenue on the fifth floor. And I was able to be very expressive in my fashion jewelry where I couldn't in my fine jewelry. So I, it was, edgier and more playful and just more statement.
[00:30:27] And so I really started to get a lot more editorial coverage and the covers of Vogue and things happened and. But I was finding that like a lot of it was cleaner pieces of jewelry. So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna make these hoops. So I made Samir Nassar, who's the editor in chief now of Harper's Bazaar at the time was a stylist, and then she turned into a fashion director, but she was a friend of mine and I made her a pair of very thin, fine gold hoops.
[00:30:50] And I was like, these are so pretty and we need to make more of these. So we just started sampling them and they, the first ones were actually. Thin and larger. And then we balanced them and evolved them. And the first one that I came out with commercially was, I named it the Samira Hoop after Samira.
[00:31:04] And to this day, it's still one of our bestselling styles. It's like that chunky hoop that isn't too chunky, but it's like that perfect thickness, diameter of a statement, gold hoop. And once I realized. That people really started to like, people were in love with them and were gravitating towards them and wanting them in more colors and styles and shapes.
[00:31:25] I was like, you know what, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do every single shape and style and every single color and every size. And I literally intentionally did that so I could corner the market on the hoops. Amazing. Yeah, that's, I got really lucky that the New York Times gave me that name too, but.
[00:31:42] Now that we've done it for so long, we now have, we've cut styles. 'cause there's so many styles that stayed in the collection that, there was too many. So now we've scaled that down and we're improving them and it's, we will always have a plethora of hoops, but now we're gonna go back and start making some more trend, jewelry, some more fashion jewelry so people can, have a little bit more to choose from other than just the hoops in the fashion collection.
[00:32:07] Elizabeth: What's your creative process for coming up with new styles?
[00:32:11] Jennifer: I literally I'll pull moods and things based off of what I wanna wear based on that time of year. So I'm always, I'm very much like a commercial, like when it comes to that, I'm like, okay, I'm a consumer. What are people? And I also watch what's going on in fashion.
[00:32:26] It's okay, this is what's coming down the runway. This is what I feel like doing that, as a consumer, what I would like to buy. If I, because I know we all don't have unlimited budgets to buy fashion, jewelry or fine jewelry, so the jewelry has to be purposeful in it's 10.
[00:32:42] It's like trend and intentions, which is why a lot of my fashion jewelry is very clean looking because I want people to wear it all the time. Never wanna be that jewelry designer that's so specific. Yes, we have trend and we have some really beautiful trend earrings coming for holiday. But I always wanna have those things so people can wear them every day.
[00:32:58] I always say, I don't wanna be the jewelry that gets put away. I want the jewelry to, I want my jewelry to be the jewelry that's on your nightstand that you're taking off and putting back on like day after day. That's important to me because I want people to, I think jewelry is powerful and I want people to be empowered and feel good wearing it daily.
[00:33:13] And I also. Like I said, I'm a consumer. Like I, I want pieces that people feel that, it's an investment in that they can wear over and over again that are evergreen. So you don't feel like you can wear it once and you can't wear it again for six more months.
[00:33:26] Elizabeth: Totally. Yeah, I love your pieces, so thank you.
[00:33:30] Which ones do you have on today? I don't know what they're called. These hoops. Those are Natashas. Okay.
[00:33:36] Jennifer: Those are many Natasha's. They look good on you. The, these are always on my nightstand. Yeah, those are good. Natasha's my best friend. I named those after my best friend in Los Angeles who actually introduced me to my husband, Kevin.
[00:33:46] Elizabeth: Oh, no way. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. That is Natasha. So thank you, Natasha. Okay, so then jewelry's humming along. Where does, where do the salts come into the world?
[00:33:58] Jennifer: Oh, gosh. Okay, at one point I was eating kinda like high protein breakfast. I intermittent fast now sometimes, but I'm trying to eat more protein.
[00:34:06] But I've always tried to eat a little more protein 'cause I'm not a giant meat eater, but I love eggs, so I was making a lot of eggs for breakfast. So I. I could never find what I wanted to put on my eggs. I was to like every Go Gourmet grocery store in New York City, la I would comb the shelves.
[00:34:21] I was like, there's no freaking salt that, like that kind of is like universal. Yeah. It's like a steak rub or potpourri. And I was, this is like crazy. I literally went home and my father used to ship me his lemons. My mother now does it, from his trees in California.
[00:34:36] And I would always zest the rind of the lemon and I to use for 'cause. I never wanted to waste any part of the lemons 'cause they're so delicious. And I would always keep some lemon rind. So I made a little concoction on the side of the stove and it was like kosher salt, black pepper. Cilantro dill, crushed chili pepper flakes, and some of that lemon.
[00:34:53] I started putting it on everything and Kevin, my husband one day was like, what are you seizing the food with? It's really delicious, and it was that salt blend. I was like, is that concoction on the, because I, it's good, right? She's it's really good. And so one day, as one does and did in the, annoying things of Instagram when we were, posting our egg avocado toast and everybody did it, I of course did it but put it on my jewelry account 'cause I was before the food account or a personal account.
[00:35:19] So I posted my eggs and more people out there was before dms and more people commented like, whoa, wait, you can poach an egg or. Then, oh my God, what is that? Seasoning on top of it. And I literally started just like answering people and had you been
[00:35:32] Elizabeth: posting food or was this really like the first food thing you had posted?
[00:35:36] Jennifer: No, I like posted an egg, avocado toast. That's literally what I posted. And people were like, whoa, you cook? And this is random. She has more than make jewelry. It was so random, but people it was interesting to see how people, it resonated with people so instantly, like more so than like celebrities wearing my jewelry.
[00:35:53] People wanted to talk about it. And so that was what was really interesting too. I was like, this is interesting. And some of my friends who were editors saw the post and were, I. We're like, that's interesting. And then we're like, okay. So as designers, back in the day when there were magazines, everywhere, it's not so much the case anymore, unfortunately.
[00:36:10] We would do giftings and give things to our editor friends and Sure. We wanted to give them something healthy to eat at their desk. 'cause at the time they'd be working on gift guides and stuck at their desks. And so we sent them avocado, lemon. That So
[00:36:22] Speaker 6: cute.
[00:36:23] Jennifer: A little bag of like healthy tortilla chips and chili oil.
[00:36:26] And that salt. A spicy salt. Though I had put sriracha, it was like a sriracha salt originally in turn until it involved into spicy salt. And literally more people like, first of all it was like this crazy undertaking from my PR team because we had to make sure it didn't get stuck at like Conde Nas in the mail room for a week if someone was like a rotten lemon.
[00:36:43] It was really like the most positive feedback we had ever received on anything we had done. And that really made me like, okay, because then they wanted to write about it. So we were like, let's figure out how to package it. We literally just figured it out and had like a sticker slapped on a package and so we could get it up and start selling it.
[00:36:57] And we found like a local co-packer that would make, that would blend it for us. I had one point, I was the one out there. I have like video content of me, like with gloves on and like a hair nut, like blending the salts and it Oh good. Yeah. That's how it started. And it was just people wanted more.
[00:37:13] And then we came out with, if Universal was the first one, and then we came out with Spicy, which is my, I have Spicy Next to My Stove, my personal favorite. I use 'em on everything. Me too. And then there's Curry. There's Die Hard Curry people. Then Curry's like the least popular one because I think it's specific.
[00:37:28] And then we have a new one called Everything Style Spicy. But the Curry's Delicious. If you have the trio, use it on tomatoes and avocados. It's really good. Yu okay? Yeah, it's so good. And eggs too. And chicken. And then everything style spicy is really good On chicken. I've been making like chicken cutlets with it, so it's oh, seed, it's delicious.
[00:37:46] So yeah, it's just honestly like just evolved. And then, so during Covid I started cooking and I started Jennifer Fisher Kitchen, which is my food, Instagram, and I started just, I still do it to this day. I just it's just me like hacking around in my kitchen, like this is what I gotta do as a working mom.
[00:38:00] To make dinner, but I didn't realize that so many other people are like me that are like, okay, I don't have a lot of time. I wanna cook something healthy for my family and I don't know how to do certain things. And so my mom, when I was younger in fifth and sixth grade, my mom sent me to cooking class after school.
[00:38:15] My art teacher at Monte Union where I went to school, she was the cooking teacher. She was like the cooking class teacher. And so we would go after school and I, that's how I learned how to cook. And it was like, the most basic thing is like, how to make, brownies from scratch and like an orange Julius.
[00:38:27] Remember what those were? Yeah. I still have the little recipe cards, but I, I, and I'm not a chef and I'm not trained and I don't know what I'm doing. I just have figured out how to cook. 'cause I've had to learn for my family. I enjoy doing it. You're making it relatable and easy.
[00:38:42] Don't we all just need that. Yeah, totally. We all need like a friend in the kitchen who can help us out and teach us maybe some like another 30 minute recipe that like is not gonna, break the bank. And also just be really easy, if you have your And be healthy and delicious.
[00:38:55] Yeah. If you keep the most basic stuff in your house, like you can, you are like armed for success. That's why I listed everything I list in the book. I'm listing spices, I'm listing grocery lists, I'm listing how to pack for travel, all that. Everything, because no one really tells you that.
[00:39:10] Elizabeth: Totally. Yeah. You are really good, I feel like about packing for travel and bringing all the things. How do you navigate eating out?
[00:39:18] Jennifer: So when I eat out, I eat a lot of. Like raw seafood. So I eat a lot of oyster shrimp. I'll have a cooked piece of fish, but I ask them to cook it in olive oil only. And I, I ask for no seed oils and most of the time it's hard because a lot of restaurants use a blend.
[00:39:31] They say it's olive oil, but it's not. So you have to ask the chef, so it's difficult. It's a lot of. Me doing my own salad dressing at the table with mustard and my salt in my bag. It's a lot of, like I said, it's a lot of raw bar. I don't, I don't eat out a ton anymore. I prefer to eat at home.
[00:39:47] Right now, this summer too, my, my son is home from college and I. I'm really trying to be home while he's here, so I've been cooking a lot at home. Just really simple things, just so we can all be together. We try to have more family dinners where we sit down at the dining room table instead of eating, standing up in the kitchen and at the counter, trying to have those like family moments while we can.
[00:40:07] But then there's also, like, when I eat out, sometimes I'm like, my friend just opened a pool, Chinese restaurant. I'm gonna eat his food. I'm not gonna you take those nights out, can't
[00:40:13] Elizabeth: be so
[00:40:14] Jennifer: rigid about it. You can't. You can't, and that's also like you, that just takes the joy out of life too.
[00:40:19] If you really want to eat the piece of bread, eat the piece of bread, just, you know what, it's, for myself, I know what I'm gonna feel like after I eat that piece of bread. It's not gonna make, my stomach's not gonna feel great, I'll feel inflamed. But sometimes it's just, you just need to, you need to do what feels right for you.
[00:40:32] If you need burger, eat the burger. I had a burger on Saturday night. Those kind of things, like you can't have, you can't be so rigid and restrictive in what you're, you'll fail.
[00:40:40] Elizabeth: I think the biggest thing around that though, is getting to the place where you're so in tune with your body that you know something isn't gonna make you feel good, and therefore you're making the conscious decision of being like, okay, I want this now.
[00:40:54] 'cause it, I'm out with my friends, it's gonna be joyful, da. But most of the time I don't want that thing because it actually doesn't make me feel good. I think that's
[00:41:01] Jennifer: something too that as a woman of my age, when I started eating this way, I was about 50 and I think there's something to be said for, the brain fog that it gives you also, that's, so it's almost like you have a brain hangover whether or not you're drinking alcohol or not from eating foods that are obviously inflammatory.
[00:41:19] You, you. Feel, my brain feels off. I feel slower. Yeah. I don't like that feeling anymore because I have to function on such a high pace at work, and in life. I don't like that hangover feeling where you feel really foggy and you just, it makes you feel horrible the next day. So to me, you make that choice, are, am I gonna feel off balance tomorrow?
[00:41:38] Am I gonna make this choice and enjoy it now and know what it's gonna make me feel like later? Or am I going to make a different choice tonight? Because I don't wanna feel that way tomorrow? But you can't guilt yourself or make yourself feel horrible if you choose the first one to eat it, like just go with it.
[00:41:52] You have to be okay with that. And you can't punish yourself for, it's just, it's not about being restrictive, it's about making choices that make you feel good. A hundred percent.
[00:41:59] Elizabeth: Okay. Other things that make you feel good, your skin is amazing. Tell us all the secrets. Oh, what do you wanna know?
[00:42:05] I'll tell you everything
[00:42:06] Jennifer: I do. I just I have a little bit of a black eye from Botox the other day. I was telling you when we started this, you can't see
[00:42:12] Speaker 6: Hesses
[00:42:12] Jennifer: off. Thank you very much. I have very good cosmetic derms. I go to Dr. Dan Belkin here in New York City. He's amazing. He does my Botox in my lips and I go to Jason Diamond in Los Angeles.
[00:42:23] And when he's here, he's incredible. And what do you got at Jason Diamond? What do you do there? I do diamond facial sculpting with him. He just did it the other day, so he'll do cheeks, temples, jaw, chin, nose. It's a lot. I'm a pin cushion. That's what I would say.
[00:42:39] Elizabeth: And what about like regular maintenance?
[00:42:40] Do you do microneedling? Do you, no, I need to, but I, extra wise, no, I need to do something. I was saying something
[00:42:46] Jennifer: the other day. No, your skin's amazing. Thank you. But to be totally transparent, I had a mini facelift when I was 50. That was my birthday gift. So I had Oh, great gift. Dr. Kat Chang did it.
[00:42:55] Yeah. But it was very slight. It wasn't a big deal. It was just, I had a lot of extra skin. 'cause I lost a lot of weight from inflammation too, and it made my face kind of sun in from when I started eating differently. It's just it's it's almost like you stick a.
[00:43:08] A needle in a balloon and everything sort of contracts when you lose the inflammation. But it wasn't a big deal. No one could tell I did anything. I just did it for myself. 'cause my neck was bothering me a little bit and if you do your neck, you need to do this part. So I have no scars.
[00:43:20] It was like a little thing. It was the easiest thing I've ever done. The key is finding the right doctor when you're making those choices, I think. And also it's personal and like you need to, everyone, this is my one thing that I need to say to everybody too, you can't judge people for doing all this stuff.
[00:43:32] It's our own bodies. Like everyone just needs to chill and make yourself happy and do what you need to do to make yourself feel good. And it's not about insecurity, it's just about bugging. No, it comes back to again, like what makes you,
[00:43:43] Elizabeth: what makes you feel good.
[00:43:45] Jennifer: Yeah. And it was bugging me. I was like, oh, every single photo, there's just neck hanging.
[00:43:48] I gotta get rid of that.
[00:43:51] Elizabeth: Love it. Okay. We're gonna move on to some rapid fire q and a three things that you are currently loving. It could be anything. A product show, whatever.
[00:44:04] Jennifer: Oh God. I only watch food tv. That's like a weird, fun fact of mine. I watch I watch Housewives too, of which I got asked to be one, but I didn't do it.
[00:44:11] Used to try out for it and I said no, but I love. I love Dr. Diamond's medicine. I think it's a really good product I've been using that can be helping my I do too Texture. It can be helping my skin texture. It's like his facial in a bottle that you don't Yeah, you don't need to see him. It's got like the compound for the blood and the, and it's amazing.
[00:44:27] I love that. I love Dr. McCree's eye cream. It's a very good eye cream, but I'm, 'cause I'm really sensitive around my eyes and a lot of eye creams make my eyes. Itch and hers does not. I love that. She also makes a really good, tinted moisturizer. That's like a base that takes the redness outta your skin.
[00:44:44] That's three things. Meat sticks. What's your favorite meat stick? Chomps. I love the New Primal, and I like Cool. I think I Okay. The kids, the, oh, and I also, oh, this is so weird. Epic pork rinds. I just saw that your dog was eating. Yeah, they're so good. That was so good. They're so delicious. There's a pink Himalayan sea salt, epic.

[00:45:04] If you're listening. They're so freaking good. And they've got 11 grams of protein, I think for a small serving and there's not a lot of sodium in them and there's not a lot of cholesterol. They're delicious. Sorry. That was way more than three

[00:45:15] Elizabeth: favorite New York restaurant right now.

[00:45:18] Jennifer: I love the Polo Bar class. I love the people there. Everyone's nice. Nelly and Andrea, the people there, it's just, it's a great, nice, amazing restaurant. Dream collab. I wanna make sneakers. Oh, I love that. I know. It's so weird. I really wanna make sneakers. I don't know who it would be with yet, but I really wanna make sneakers and I also wanna do eyewear.

[00:45:39] Elizabeth: I think you need to get clear on who that's gonna be with so you can feel it and manifest it.

[00:45:45] Jennifer: I know, it's either a Nike or Adidas, but we'll say you gotta,

[00:45:49] Elizabeth: you gotta get clear and put it out there three words that describe your style.

[00:45:54] Jennifer: Oh gosh. Black. Black and black. , there are a lot of black, I would say now my, 'cause my style changes and evolves, but right now I'm in like a, I'm in a more of a kinda like utilitarian 'cause I'm wearing like these.

[00:46:11] Jennifer: I would say tonal, utilitarian and simple. I'm trying to simplify it.

[00:46:16] Elizabeth: Good basics. Business moment. Which one? Favorite business moment? Oh gosh. One.

[00:46:24] Jennifer: There's so many. I don't even know where I would start. There's moments of celebrity that you get excited about? When Beyonce opened the Grammys wearing my earrings like that.

[00:46:32] Oh my God. Like all those moments you don't know are gonna happen. And did you know that you didn't know that was gonna happen? No, I had no idea. I literally screamed and my kids thought someone died. My kids were like, what's wrong? Like I was like screaming. It was insane. Yeah. We had these beautiful diamond earrings that we had made and we made them for a magazine for the story and her stylist ended up pulling them last minute and she opened up the Grammys wearing them singing.

[00:46:52] It was incredible.

[00:46:53] Elizabeth: That's incredible.

[00:46:54] Jennifer: Yeah. Those moments that you don't know are coming are the best moments. Mean you never know any of 'em are coming 'cause you don't, sure you don't know what they're gonna wear. But that

[00:47:03] Elizabeth: that was pretty cool. A whole other level. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

[00:47:06] And lastly, what is your number one non-negotiable to thrive on your wellness journey?

[00:47:15] Elizabeth: love that. With that, Jennifer, thank you so much for being here. In closing, where can everybody find you and anything that's coming up next?

[00:47:25] Jennifer: Thank you for having me.

[00:47:26] First of all, I'm gonna go eat some of your granola right now 'cause I forgot my lunch. And that's what I keep in my office. When I forget my lunch. You can find me at Jennifer Fisher Jewelry, which is my jewelry account. You can find me at Jennifer Fisher Kitchen, which is my cooking account where I'm making my dinners for my kids and my grocery shopping halls and things like that.

[00:47:42] And my random recipes. And then at Jennifer Fisher is just my personal account, which is just a bunch of memes. And when does the cookbook come out? Hopefully it let's slated for next summer. Okay. It takes so long to do these things so long. Oh my God. Thank you so much for having me. It was I'm so happy to know you and I'm so glad that we are now friends.

[00:48:04] Me too. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Bye bye.

[00:48:10] Elizabeth: Thanks so much for joining me on Live Purely with Elizabeth. I hope you feel inspired to thrive on your wellness journey. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to rate, subscribe, and review. You can follow us on Instagram at purely Elizabeth to.

[00:48:26] Catch up on all the latest. See you next Wednesday on the podcast.