Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
From Burnout to Blankets: Elizabeth Grojean's Journey to Better Sleep
What happens when a burned-out marketing executive takes a leap of faith to Bali and discovers a product that transforms sleep? Elizabeth Grojean, founder of Baloo Living, shares her remarkable journey from corporate dissatisfaction to purpose-driven entrepreneurship centered around weighted blankets.
After feeling like a "round peg in a square hole" despite working with prestigious companies, Elizabeth quit her job, took her savings, and headed to Bali. What began as a personal reset became the foundation for a life-changing business. She discovered weighted blankets through market research, experiencing their profound calming effects firsthand. When she tried one, a 20-minute nap left her feeling deeply refreshed – a sensation she knew others would benefit from experiencing.
The science behind weighted blankets connects to deep pressure touch, activating the same comfort mechanisms as hugs or massages. In a study using Baloo's blankets, 78% of users reported improved sleep quality, with measurable improvements in deep sleep duration, falling asleep 27% faster, and better sleep efficiency. These aren't just numbers – they translate to life-changing results, from helping someone sleep after losing a loved one to reducing bedtime struggles for children with sensory needs.
Elizabeth's commitment to quality shines through her product decisions: all-natural Oeko-Tex certified cotton, glass microbeads for weight, and plastic-free packaging. The company extends its mission through nonprofit partnerships with organizations like the Pajama Program, helping children in foster care establish healthy sleep routines.
Whether you struggle with sleep issues or simply want to enhance your rest quality, Elizabeth's story reminds us that sometimes the most effective wellness solutions come from unexpected journeys. Tune in to discover how weighted blankets might transform your sleep experience – and perhaps inspire your own leap of faith toward better wellbeing.
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Hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today we have a very special guest. Her name is Elizabeth Grojan and you know Elizabeth comes to us with an interesting story. She came out of, you know, the world of business, and it turns out she was out on a little break in Bali and discovered an amazing thing that we're going to get talking about. And, elizabeth, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Hi Joe, I'm good. Thank you for having me. I'm calling in from Texas.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, nice. What's Texas like right now? I know you guys get hot and humid about this time of year.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, we get so hot here, but it's June right now. It hasn't, it hasn't hit, so we're still we're still at a nice 90s in the 90s.
Speaker 1:All right, fair enough. Well, I'm Southern California, in the Inland Empire, so we get really bad as well, but we don't get the humidity that you guys get. So we've had a pretty easy June, so I'm really I'm grateful for it. Hopefully it'll just carry on. It never does. So. Tell us a little bit about your experience. I didn't want to break the story entirely. I wanted you to be able to bring that, but you know you're coming out of a corporate life and we've had a number of guests that have had a sort of a similar transformation. I want you to take us back to when that all happened.
Speaker 2:So the year was 2017, 2018. So we've been in business now for about seven, going on eight years, which is really hard to believe, but it started. It all started in Bali and you know, I don't know if it's just me, but now that I've been through this experience, I hear a lot of other people saying that they also started businesses out of being in Bali. So there's something about that island that really creativity and creation. So, yeah, it's a gorgeous place.
Speaker 2:But, yes, I had been up until that time working in marketing and was living in New York and kind of done a lot of job, switching, I'd say, like a lot of lateral moves. I did marketing for architecture, tequila, small children's books Wow, that's quite a diverse group, right, always like with these amazing companies, you know, like ones that you would recognize, like BlackRock and BBDO and Scholastic, and it was all like really good exposure. But I just always felt like I was a round peg in a square hole and I didn't feel like I was finding like quote, unquote it, until finally, kind of in a moment of last resort, I'd say I just gave notice and had taken my savings and decided I was going to travel and Bali was the place, because I did keep hearing all these stories of creativity and you know, regenesis, regenesis coming from there, not to mention Eat, pray, love. That was part of it, sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's a great show and you know, any place that just is wild and natural and beautiful takes you away from all the city stuff. That's the opposite of all that.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so that was kind of part of what I found was just like you know, the lived experience of reconnecting to nature and the sun, you know circadian rhythms and bugs and lizards and flowers and all those things. It was kind of like a spiritual, emotional and probably somewhat physical detox.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:To be there.
Speaker 1:So how long were you there? There's generally like this first week you just kind of decompress, and then after that you begin to relax, and then things happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say my story. It took a bit longer than I expected because I was this A-type New Yorker with a list of things to do to maximize my spiritual experience.
Speaker 2:And so a few weeks after checking things off the list, I was like, oh my God, I'm stressed out again and I'm doing the same thing in paradise that I did before I left. And I kind of went hard the other way, which was have no list and wake up and see what feels like. What does today feel like? And it might be nothing, or it might be coffee or yoga or whatever. So I was kind of just doing a lot of exploring and that was really great. And then I felt so good. I was there for three months and I would say for that period of time every week I felt more relaxed. Nice, it was kind of like a realization that none of us ever take enough time really to relax. Two weeks or a month is not enough, and I get it Like you know how, how do we do that?
Speaker 1:But yeah, right, yeah, maybe at the end of your life if you got a good savings and you can truly retire, but for the most part, Well, that was one of the TED talks I saw that I found so inspiring.
Speaker 2:Was this guy talking about? Instead of saving all your time off for the end of your life, you should take a year off every seven years, agreed. And he did a year in Bali, and he was a designer, of course, and so, you know, I thought that was a great idea. It's been seven years now, so I'm due for my year. A great idea. It's been seven years now, so I'm due for my year. Okay.
Speaker 2:So then after three months, I came back to New York feeling fully rested, recovered.
Speaker 2:I thought, you know, I'd quote unquote, like found the secret to my happiness, or whatever. And then it turns out it was just a vacation high, and I smacked into the concrete jungle and said, oh no, it's, you know, it's not within me, it was external change or whatever. So that was the turning point in my life and my journey was the question of okay, well, do you jump back into the survival set mindset or go back into the exploration of the unknown? And I didn't have any more savings left. So at this point it was a real jump. And I took the jump and I thought follow what my body tells me which is what feels good in my body Trust, and I had an intention of this time going back, of starting a business, which I think is very important, because I see a lot of people do this that also kind of end up being drifters for a long time. The journey is the destination, but I think it's very helpful to have a destination that enriches the journey.
Speaker 1:Right, Someone's got to pay for all the all the coconuts and the yoga.
Speaker 2:I had a very clear intention of going back and establishing a business. That would be something I could run remotely, and so I started going. I went back and it's amazing when you do things in alignment because then the road started to build build itself as I was walking. I got freelance work through my prior employer, so now I had enough income to live on there and I took an online course about product research and that's how I discovered weighted blankets. It actually had nothing to do with Bali, but being in Bali made it possible for me to have the bandwidth to explore.
Speaker 1:Nice. So tell me about your discovery of weighted blankets.
Speaker 2:So you know it's not very sexy. I was doing the work, I was looking at data on Amazon to see what people were looking for and what had an opportunity in terms of competition, and there was this massive amount of searches for weighted blankets and then there was almost nothing being offered except for stuff that was gray polyester and it just all looked like cheap knockoff stuff.
Speaker 1:Right Teemo stuff.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so I got a sample and I tried one, and as soon as I tried that, I fell asleep very deeply in the middle of the day for 20 minutes, and when I woke up I felt like I had gone, been transported. I felt so relaxed and peaceful, I felt so good that it really became. That was something that was a financial opportunity, of course, but something that I was very excited to share with people, and to do it in a way that was more quality and uplifting than what was currently being offered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the idea of weighted blankets, I mean they've been actually using it in the animal world forever, you know, they actually they use it for cattle, they, you know, put them in like this squeeze, where they kind of make them feel like they're being.
Speaker 2:The squeeze box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it makes them feel comforted by their mom or whatever they're just like, okay, or even dogs, they do these sort of same things and it sort of brings you back to when you're being snuggled, and I think there's some kind of a connection in your brain that you know goes back to that time where you didn't have anything to worry about, you could just let go and everything was going to be OK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought that was just such a beautiful experience that you know who doesn't want to feel that way, right yeah, not to feel that way, right yeah. Not to mention that they do help with sleep, which is also another benefit. I've always been a great sleeper. Sleep's my superpower, but you know, on those days when sleep is a struggle, it's really really tough.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I've got the same blessing. As you know, my wife's always whacking me in the head. She's like you can't fall asleep that fast. I'm like, yeah, I can, but but every once in a while, when something gets nagging in your brain and you can't sleep or whatever you're dealing with a physical issue, you realize how important it is, because if I don't get my sleep, I'm lost, and I think most people that I come in contact with and I come in contact with a lot of people struggle with sleep. I think it's not we, we're not normal people, and I think most people struggle to get to sleep, they struggle to stay asleep and they struggle to get good, deep, REM sleep. So that seems like this would be maybe a big answer, and I think sleep is one of the primary pillars of health. I don't know how you get healthy if you're not sleeping, when your body repairs itself.
Speaker 2:Totally, all your cells are doing their work and it's, it's cumulative, like yeah, I mean, I think that it's possible to wake up not feeling tired too.
Speaker 1:Agreed Again, my wife would get set because I jump up out of bed bright eyed, bushy tailed, ready to go. And again, most people it's like oh you know, you take your hour to drink a cup of coffee or whatever and get yourself waking up. But you're right, good sleep is, it's a superpower. And if you can, if you can do something to make that easier, that seems like it'd be worth the investment. No matter what, it would be that easier, that seems like it'd be worth the investment, no matter what.
Speaker 2:It would be Totally Well, I can just jump straight over to talking about a study we did using our blankets to tell us the story of how impactful they were on sleep.
Speaker 2:And there have been some studies done on weighted blankets, but they've all been pretty small and one was done using chain mail blankets like 30 pound chain mail.
Speaker 2:There has been a lot of research and a lot of scientific you know peer reviewed journals done on deep pressure touch, which is the mechanism that weighted blankets use, and so that that is the same thing as being massaged, held hugged. You know, we know all of the benefits of that, but way to blanket specifically, there's not that much research on. So we did our own study partnering up with a wearable tech device called the friends brain band, and they have an 88 percent accuracy as composed, as compared to a sleep lab study. But this is the benefit is that we could do this with people sleeping at home in their own beds to get data, and the results were were really positive. So we had 78% of users report that they had a positive effect on their sleep quality using the blanket. Yeah, that was. That was the qualitative report, and another qualitative piece was that people's readiness scores improved by 10%, and so that was the feeling of physical recovery and readiness to start the day.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's fantastic yeah.
Speaker 2:And the two pieces of data that we got back or three, I should say that we got back using the biometric measurements were an increase in deep sleep duration by 10% and an improvement on sleep onset latency which is how long it takes you to fall asleep of 27%. So getting faster, getting more quality sleep, and then an improvement in sleep efficiency. So that's how often you wake up in the middle of the night. So sleep efficiency improved to 92%.
Speaker 1:Wow. So that number was huge. The dropping off to sleep was still remarkable. It's almost 30%, it's almost a third, and but the quality of sleep that seems like just about everybody benefited from that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I thought this was really nice to hear, because if you can make these, you know they're incremental improvements in your sleep quality, but that's impacting everything across your whole spectrum of health and well-being.
Speaker 1:One good night of sleep, you feel it. I mean you could restore four or five bad nights of sleep with one good night pretty quick.
Speaker 2:Right. And so what I think is so cool about weighted blankets? Not only do they feel so wonderful and they help your sleep, but you know you buy one once and you can use it for the rest of your life At least ours. We have a lifetime quality guarantee, and I also do a lot. You know. I see a functional medicine doctor and I take supplements and I do other things for my health as an investment, but I'll spend a lot more on supplements over my time.
Speaker 1:That's the thing too. A lot of times people, anytime you can look at it the difference between a device or a consumable, whether it's a supplement or even food, you know. You go when people are like I don't know, that's expensive and if it's going to last you more than a month. I just look at what you're spending on your vegetables. If you're buying good, full quality produce, or your coffee or whatever it is, you know, or supplements or vitamins, whatever, it's like crazy. And if you got got something in this situation where you say it's a lifetime product, I mean, I mean, even if it was that last year for a year, you think about how many. What do I spend in any one of these categories in a year?
Speaker 2:And you're just like I could have bought a bunch of those what would be like worth for good sleep. So it's really. It's really a fun business to be in because we hear the feedback from customers of just you know, sometimes they make me want to cry, like like being able to sleep for the first time after losing a loved one, but years ago. So solid sleep, you know it's, it's life changing sometimes.
Speaker 1:So tell me about you know, you just decided to start this business, and a lot of people you know that are connected to health based businesses are maybe not have never done that before. Like you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I've started dozens of businesses, but I failed at many of them and I, you know, took a while to start figuring out. You know how to do that. Well, it's not a skill that just generally comes to people. So tell me about your process with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I was really scared to start. Actually, I had a business partner for a minute, someone I met in Bali, another girl from Australia who had left corporate and she had a big fund that she was really ready to invest in starting up a business. And we were working on this together for a couple of months, like I had the idea, and then she was looking for products and couldn't find an idea. So she said, hey, let's partner. And I said, yes, two months in, a friend of mine goes, you know, you used to be really happy, but you seem kind of down, like what happened. And I said, oh my gosh, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:Having a partner like this is meant to be a solo endeavor. And I call, I rode my motorbike home, I called her, I told her like this isn't me, this is the universe, this is just true. I just have to tell you this is what's happening. Um, I paid her back everything she put in and I had no, I had no money. I had no money to buy inventory to get started. And my dad was like you really messed that one up, didn't you?
Speaker 1:I said no.
Speaker 2:I know that I didn't, because it would not have succeeded that way. If you, if you, try to make your decisions based on control or scarcity or lack or anything. It just wasn't right. And he said and I don't have a family, this is not a situation where you think, oh yeah, so her dad just gave her money. Okay, that's not normal. But my dad said I would like to help you get started. And I said no, I said I really want to do this on my own, like part of my motivation is I want to be able to support my family, my larger family. I'm the oldest child, so I think that's a common I'm the eldest too.
Speaker 1:I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that feeling. But then I went into a breathwork meditation session with a healer, as you do in Bali, and in that session I could feel my dad's presence and I felt the light. I'm going to cry, yeah. It was like this feeling of him wanting to support me out of unconditional love, not for any other reason. So I came out and I said yes, I will accept your gift, I will allow you to contribute to me in that way. And he said you know, when I was your age which I was 37, when I was your exact same age, my dad supported my business and that was a pivotal moment for me in understanding what it means to be a father. So it was like a thread, it was beautiful. And then he said you want me to wire money to China? Was like a thread, it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:And then he said you want me to wire money to China.
Speaker 2:I was like I think that's what we're supposed to do now.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:And so that's how we bought the first order of inventory and that was only 500 blankets and we sold out in a month and a half. I was very, very nervous because it just looked like this amazing opportunity. I was like this looks like it just looked like this amazing opportunity. I was like this looks like such a no brainer. I just don't know why, if I see it, no one else is seeing this. Like, how can I must be missing something. But also, what am I going to do? Not do it.
Speaker 1:Right. Why would you not continue Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we did it and you know, I really thought this was going to be a side hustle, something I could do on the side to help me with multiple streams of income or kind of maybe be able to continue to live a little bit more freely. And it turned into a major business in the first year and by the second year, I think, or third year, I hired my sister full time and she got her corporate job and now she's the CO, the COO and everyone I laugh because she went to Princeton and so I went to state school.
Speaker 2:But we love working together and we're still a small business, but you know we've been around now for seven going on eight years and really love, love, being able to do things the way that we want to do them, make choices that are aligned with the best quality and the best service and the best, the best product for people.
Speaker 1:So tell me about the blanket itself. I know that you're talking about. You know the quality and all of that. Now, when you were first setting this thing up, you know you're dealing with. You know contract manufacturers. You have to set the specs of what you want, and they probably had some kind of a product that they started with to say we can do this. Tell me about that a little bit. What caused you to make your blanket the way you made it?
Speaker 2:Well, I wanted it to be all natural materials, so we use cotton, and then the default was to use a polyester lining inside, so we've taken that out and it's all cotton. And then the glass microbeads are what makes the weight. And the first question I always get is is the weight of blanket going to make me hot? Because I get that naturally as a thought. But with just cotton and really high quality, premium and clean cotton, we use Ocotex certified cotton, so there's no chemicals on the cotton from processing. It's very cool and breathable. And that was first and foremost in my mind because I was living in Bali at the time and I was thinking about people going through menopause or perimenopause, and being able to sleep is a big deal.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of us just are hot blooded sleep.
Speaker 2:Hot sleepers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is an all-year tool and all-weather tool. It's not seasonal at all and cool and breathable and there's really not too much that you can do from a tech point of view or create a moat around a weighted blanket, since it's a pretty simple tool which I think is part of what makes it so elegant and wonderful but just really high-quality materials. And then we have plastic free packaging, so everything comes in canvas bag and we use paper tape instead of plastic tape and that's more expensive and everything just being very thoughtful about those details. And then from the first day we've been partnered with a nonprofit called the Pajama Program which helps children get better sleep, and the founder of that organization started off working with kids in foster care and homeless shelters who actually didn't know. Like she met a child who didn't know what pajamas were Wow Her heart.
Speaker 2:And so they first got their start by raising funds and donations to give kids books and pajamas so they could have a reassuring bedtime routine and an otherwise chaotic life pajamas so they could have a reassuring bedtime routine and an otherwise chaotic life. And so I love this organization and we partner with them. And then we also work with another one called Sea Trees to offset our carbon footprint and then double the offset to pay it forward. And they're doing very inspiring work in reforesting kelp and mangrove forests, which sequester five times more carbon than the rainforest from the atmosphere.
Speaker 1:So I like that. Actually, I'm well aware of what kelp and mangrove can do, so I think that's that's really that's good work there. Tell me about this partnership with the nonprofit. I like hearing business. I run a nonprofit as well, so I like hearing when businesses do do partner with that. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:In the beginning, when we were getting started, we would do a donation to them anytime someone would leave a review or tag us on social media. But then it felt a little bit too, you know, I don't know, bribey, or something. Sure, we stopped that and now we just do a financial contribution to them every year and they're very reliant on their two corporate partners, which are Scholastic and Carter's Pajamas. Even though we're a very small partner for them, I think it's nice that we can help spread the word a bit more.
Speaker 1:Trust me as a nonprofit. Anytime somebody comes in and says I support what you're doing and you can count on something, it makes all the difference in the world. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we try to talk about them a lot. Yeah, definitely, it's. A big item on my list this year is to figure out how to structure that in a more I don't know stronger way so we can do more for them.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff. So you probably have a lot of stories about you, know the impact that you've made, how you know you're you're a distributor or you're a wholesaler or you're a retailer how does your business function?
Speaker 2:I don't really know which category we fit into. We still contract our manufacturing out. It's still made in China. We have an amazing factory. We're not working with the original factory anymore. I've been there and visited, but they have a stellar product. We buy the inventory and then we sell it direct to consumers through our website and through Amazon.
Speaker 1:So Amazon is your other website. Okay, fair enough, those are our two. And through Amazon Okay, so Amazon is your other website, okay fair enough.
Speaker 2:Those are our two core sales channels, and then we're partnered up with some other online stores so we'll drop ship for them. One of those is Goop, another is like Zola for wedding registries. A handful of other online stores. Something I'm really trying to explore further this year is getting into hotels and spas, because it's such an experiential product. I think if someone had the chance to try it out then they would know like what it feels like.
Speaker 1:What's the price point on these things?
Speaker 2:Our bestseller is the 12-pound throw, and that one retails for $2.18 full price, and then we have free shipping.
Speaker 1:Nice and, as you, as you said, you know you can spend that on a couple of months worth of vitamins really easy. You know, fast, good quality herbal supplements and you're spending 30 to 60 bucks for a bottle of you know 60 capsules just like that, and uh, so it it seems like a number, but, man, if, if you really pay attention, it's nothing, so I like all that.
Speaker 1:You've probably had a lot of feedback from clients political stuff going on and tariffs and issues with China. Has that impacted you or do you think it's going to?
Speaker 2:It definitely has. You know, we're paying a 35 percent duty rate now, which is a pretty significant increase in our cost of product now, which is a pretty significant increase in our cost of product. So we are exploring manufacturing in other countries, but I don't think it's realistic for us to manufacture in the United States, unfortunately. What would be ideal to me is if we could find something in Latin America in our time zone where we could easily. It just makes everything a lot easier.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, working with China is rough because you're dealing with them at midnight just to have a conversation. I've done some business with them and it's not good for sleeping people, right? So back to the question that I had. I always like to hear sort of that one personal story or a couple of anecdotes. It just says where somebody you told me about the one lady who slept for the first time after losing a loved one. But is there anything else that stands out as a significant impact that your product has made?
Speaker 2:When I always think about it, maybe because there's a personal connection. Here was one of our customer service people her first name is Emma has a son on the spectrum and he was, I think, eight or nine at the time, and she started using our weighted blanket with him and said that it took an hour off of the time it took for him to fall asleep. So I just I get emotional, thinking about how hard it is to be a kid with that challenge. I think that it was still taking him an hour to get to sleep, but man like better than two right.
Speaker 2:Right. And another thing is that he had started a new medication which was like an ADD type of medication, which you know, those are stimulants at the same time and his sleep I guess she was using a sleep tracker on him, I don't know, but his sleep score improved at the same time. So that was pretty, pretty incredible and just you know, as a mom, thinking about that with your child, like you're really trying to help them out and to find something that that helps, is great.
Speaker 1:Well, that's fantastic. Well, Elizabeth, we always come to this bewitching hour and I'd like to give you a chance to give your elevator pitch and a way that everybody can get a hold of you.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Well, I don't know if I have much more to say about Baloo Living, but we make weighted blankets. We also make weighted sleep mask, which I didn't mention. That's made out of silk, and we have a super luxe linen sheets. If you're into linen, linen sheets. If you're into linen, come to see our store at baloolivingcom and that's spelled b-a-l-o-o, and we have a discount for your listeners, which is let me find out what it's called healthy living for 10 off storewide, um, or you can find it in the show notes, so everybody can find it perfect excellent.
Speaker 1:well, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you and I wish you always the very best success. It sounds like you're helping a lot of people find health in their life.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It was great to be here.
Speaker 1:You bet. All right, this has been the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine. We thank you for your support.
